RAMALLAH – The jailed Fatah leader Marwan Al-Barghouthi criticized President Mahmoud Abbas for ostensibly abandoning the demand for a “right of return” said he will be become the president of Palestine. Barghouthi, a member of Abbas' Fatah Central Comiittee, stressed in an interview aired by the Israeli Channel 10 television late Wednesday that that he bitterly opposed Abbas's recent intimation of readiness to compromise on the right of return of millions of Palestinian refugees. The interview was jointly conducted by Channel 10 television and the daily Haaretz in the Hadarim jail for two hours last month, however, Israeli military censor did not allow the interview to be aired in full. Noting that Barghouthi, consistently polls as the most popular West Bank Palestinian leader, the television quoted him as saying that right of return is “sacred.” Abbas told the Israeli Channel 2 interviewer two months ago that he personally did not seek the “right” to live in his hometown of Safad in northern Israel. “Palestine now for me is the ‘67 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital...I believe the West Bank and Gaza is Palestine and the other parts are Israel,” Abbas said. Israel rejects the idea of Palestinian refugees' right of return to their original homes in the 1948 areas in accordance with the UN General Assembly Resolution 194, saying that in any future peace solution, they can only return to their independent state, which will be established in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israel fears that a massive influx would threaten the Jewish majority in the country, which now counts some 8 million of whom some 1.6 million Arab Palestinians. Some six million Palestinian refugees are scattered around the world, including more than 400,000 in Lebanon. They are dependent on UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA). Barghouthi told his interviewers that he will become the president of Palestine. “You read the polls and understand that I am Abbas's replacement,” he said. Recent Palestinian polls found that the jailed Fatah leader is the most popular successor to Abbas if the latter insist on not running in future presidential elections. The Palestinian president reportedly told members of his Fatah's Central Committee that “he will not seek reelection for another term.” The Fatah leader also stated that Israel has proven it does not want peace. “When I'm president, and Israel agrees to a two-state solution based on the 1967 border with the capital of Palestine as East Jerusalem, I will ensure that Hamas does not carry out terror attack,” he said. “They have already agreed to this and we formulated an agreement here in prison,” Barghouthi added.
