Even before meeting Trump, Abbas demands ‘state on 1967 borders’

Abbas stressed that he would accept nothing less than a state along Israel’s pre-1967 borders already before his meeting with Trump on Wednesday.

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday that the PA will not agree to anything less than a Palestinian state along Israel’s borders before the Six Day War of 1967.

The Palestinian news outlet Wafa reported that Abbas had told a number of Arab leaders in the United States at his Washington residence on Tuesday evening that “without a state on the 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital, we will not accept any solution.”

The Washington Post reported last week that both officials in the Trump administration and in the Palestinian Authority were keeping expectations low regarding the Trump-Abbas meeting on Wednesday.

Abbas’ unequivocal call for Palestinian Authority statehood on the pre-1967 borders comes as the Hamas terrorist organization presented a document in Doha, Qatar, on Monday that slightly amends its 1988 charter calling for the Palestinian statehood in all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

“(Hamas) considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of 4 June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus,” the new document says.

Nevertheless, senior Hamas official Khaled Mashaal, who presented the document at Monday’s press conference, stressed that the new document does not recognize the Jewish state of Israel.

“Hamas rejects any idea except liberating the home soil entirely and completely, although it does not necessarily mean we recognise the Zionist entity or give up any of our Palestinian rights,” Meshaal said according to Al-Jazeera.

By: Jonathan Benedek, World Israel News