Mohammed Mar'i Saudi Gazette RAMALLAH – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that the Palestinians will not demand to return to pre-1967 lines if they offered a just peace agreement. Abbas told a delegation of left-wing members of Kenesset from the Meretz party who visited Ramallah late Thursday that if offered a just agreement, the Palestinian leadership would agree to a final end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and “will not demand in the future to return to Jaffa, Acre or Haifa. Peace with Israel will be final and binding.” According to an account of the meeting posted on the Meretz website, Abbas told the delegation, headed by MK Zahava Gal-On, that “the Palestinian people are ready for and want peace.” “You have a commitment from the Palestinian people, and also from the leadership, that if we are offered a just agreement, we will sign a peace deal that will put an end to the conflict and to future demands from the Palestinian side,” Abbas was quoted as saying. He reassured the MKs that he had given up hope of returning to his childhood home in Safad and that Palestinian refugees will not return to Yaffa (Jaffa) or Akka (Acre). Abbas expressed similar sentiments in an interview with Israeli Channel 2 in November. He later played down those comments. The comments mark the first time Abbas spoke publicly about the US-brokered peace talks since they were relaunched two weeks ago. Abbas said he was not optimistic that the talks will succeed, but he “hoped they were not a waste of time” and that an agreement could be reached between Israel and the Palestinians over the next six months. The Palestinian president complained that the two sides were not meeting often enough. He said the delegations should be meeting every day, and that he had notified Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu several times of his willingness to meet face-to-face but did not receive an affirmative answer. Abbas also told the MKs Israel's continued construction in the settlements and East Jerusalem neighborhoods does not create the appropriate atmosphere for the current peace talks. Abbas said the Palestinian leadership was nevertheless interested in making the peace talks with Israel succeed. According to the Meretz delegation's account, Abbas said that “over 70 percent of Palestinians support peace with Israel.” A June poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that some 59 percent of Palestinians were “supportive of the peace process” in general terms, but 58 percent said the two-state solution is no longer practical due to Jewish settlement expansion and 69 percent said the chances for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the next five years are slim or non-existent.
