Mahmoud Abbas assailed Israel’s expansion of Jewish
neighborhoods around Jerusalem. “I warn against this grave step of
building new settlements in and around East Jerusalem. This step will
isolate Jerusalem Palestinians from the West Bank,” the Palestinian
Authority president said Tuesday in a television address marking the day on which Palestinians mourn the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” of Israel’s
founding. Abbas called for foreign powers to intervene to back the
P.A.’s desire for a future capital in eastern Jerusalem. Israel, which captured the area in the 1967 Six-Day War, annexed eastern Jerusalem to its own capital. But Abbas also had more
conciliatory words, saying Israel should accept a Saudi proposal for
regional peace. “It’s time to be rid of the illusion that peace can be
achieved while maintaining occupation, or that power will force the
Palestinians to kneel and yield,” he said.
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