RAMALLAH, West Bank, Feb 16 (Reuters) – Addressing a
sticking point in U.S.-brokered peace talks, President Mahmoud
Abbas on Sunday dismissed charges by Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu that he wanted to “flood” Israel with
Palestinian refugees.
Abbas spoke to about 300 Israeli students in the West Bank
city of Ramallah two weeks before Netanyahu meets President
Barack Obama in Washington as an April deadline looms in
negotiations for a two-state solution.
He said the Palestinians wanted to keep alive the refugee
issue in the talks resumed after a three-year freeze in July
under U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s tutelage, to ensure a
resolution of the rights of Palestinians who fled or were driven
away during 1948 hostilities when Israel was founded.
“But we do not seek either to flood Israel with millions (of
refugees) or to change its social composition,” Abbas said.
His comments were seen as his clearest suggestion yet he
might accept Israel’s demands that refugees be permitted to
“return” only to a future Palestinian state.
Netanyahu had accused Abbas in January of being unwilling
accept that Israel should not be “deluged” by refugees as part
of a deal under negotiation to achieve Palestinian statehood in
land occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East war.
Reiterating his insistence that Palestinians recognise
Israel as a Jewish state – a demand Abbas has rejected –
Netanyahu had said: “Otherwise what we are being asked to do is
allow the establishment of a Palestinian state …which will try
to flood us with refugees”, undermining Israel’s own existence.
Despite the signs of possible progress on the refugee issue,
though, the sides still seemed far apart on other disputes such
as the Palestinian demand for a capital in East Jerusalem, which
Israel has made a part of its capital and annexed in a move
never recognised internationally.
With both Netanyahu and Abbas facing pressure from
respective political allies against making concessions on core
issues, Kerry has said he hopes to publish a framework or
possible blueprint for an eventual peace agreement.
(Reporting by Ali Sawafta and Noah Browning; Writing by Allyn
Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Alistair Lyon)
