Palestinians in Europe: Abbas should be stripped of powers

[ 23/10/2010 - 05:05 PM ]

LONDON, (PIC)-- Palestinian institutions in Europe said Palestinian de facto president Mahmoud Abbas should be stripped of his powers over statements he made on Israeli television announcing plans to back down on the historical rights of the Palestinians in return for a state based on 1967 borders.

A statement undersigned by 29 Palestinian foundations in the European continent said: “The surrender of any Palestinian figure to the aims of the Israeli occupation, in word or deed, calls for the stripping of all involved in such unprecedented positions of the positions and powers they occupy, and [such figures] should be held accountable without delay for continued infringements on the Palestinian people's inalienable rights.”

“Mahmoud Abbas and those with him forgot that no one is authorized to waive or can interfere with the rights of the Palestinian people. They are the legal rights over which our people have sacrificed for nearly a century,” the statement read.

The organizations also strongly denounced statements by senior PLO official Yasser Abedrabbo announcing the PA’s willingness to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, saying: “We condemn in the strongest terms irresponsible statements expressing names that have no legitimacy in the Palestinian arena, like what Yasser Abedrabbo recently said about serving the strategic goals of the Israeli occupation relating to what is termed the ‘Jewish state’ and prospects for a political solution.”

“It is a shame that such weak, irresponsible positions of political bankruptcy come while the Israeli occupation government steps up preparations aimed at perpetuating a new framework for an even more racist stage against the Palestinian people.”

“[Israel’s terms of recognition as a Jewish state] is an attempt to legitimatize the racist character of the occupation [force] and its country and a desperate effort to cut the road to the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their land and homes.”

“[Abbas’s positions] also aim to threaten our people inside 1948-occupied Palestine against their existence and stability, especially since they come in line with the package of new racist laws formulated by the extremist Israeli government, such as the oath to loyalty to a Jewish state law and the ban on all references to the Nakba (catastrophe).”

The groups stressed that the recent developments “form a situation to which the world today cannot turn a blind eye or respond with silence, as well as clearer expression of Israeli logic which deals with the so-called peace process as a framework to perpetuate the prolonged occupation and undermine or circumvent the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.”

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