Abbas: I am not against the idea of swapping W. Bank lands with Israel

[ 23/05/2010 - 11:36 AM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Mahmoud Abbas said he is not against the principle of exchanging lands with Israel in any future agreement and denied his campaign to boycott goods manufactured in West Bank settlements is aimed at Israel.

Reuters news agency quoted Abbas, who commented on US news reports stating he accepted to double the area of lands he intends to swap with Israel, as saying that he did not agree with Israelis yet on the extent of lands to be exchanged, but all parties agreed on the principle itself.

The US Wall Street Journal affirmed, for its part, that Abbas made unexpected major concessions on the issue of borders during his meeting with US envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell.

It said Abbas made concessions bigger than the ones he previously made during his talks with former Israeli premier Ehud Olmert, where he offered 3.8 percent of West Bank lands to Israel in exchange for lands elsewhere in occupied Palestine.

According to the newspaper, Abbas also denied that his authority incites against Israel, and asserted that his campaign to boycott settlement products was not directed at Israel at all.

“We’re not boycotting Israel because we have relations with it and we import from it,” he said. “We are only boycotting the settlements.”

Meanwhile, political arrest campaigns in West Bank cities continued, where Abbas’s security militias kidnapped 13 Palestinian citizens affiliated with Hamas, including national figures, ex-detainees in Israeli jails and mosque imams, from Salfit, Jenin, Tulkarem, Ramallah, and Nablus, according to a statement issued by the Movement of Hamas on Sunday.

Hamas also stated in its weekly report on the violations committed by both the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel in the West Bank that Abbas’s militia escalated its arrest campaigns against Hamas cadres during the past week.

It said Abbas’s militias kidnapped during that week 76 Palestinians including 37 ex-detainees, eight university students and one journalist while the Israeli occupation forces kidnapped three other students from different West Bank areas.

The report noted that Abbas’s militias carried out a wide arrest campaign in Luban village, south of Nablus, that resulted in the kidnapping of more than 15 Palestinians thought to be affiliated with Hamas, including the imam of the mosque which was burned earlier this month by Israeli settlers.

In another context, a PA delegation conducted bilateral talks with senior Jordanian security officials regarding the training of 600 Palestinian officers of Abbas’s security apparatuses in Jordan.

According to the Hebrew radio, the Palestinian officers will receive several training courses on criminal investigation and other police duties.

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