Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview with Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidano that Islamic State (ISIS) ”terrorism will end in Europe as well when the occupation of Palestine does”.
”The end of the Israeli occupation of Palestine would be the key to weakening ISIS, Al Qaeda and similar groups. We are working with dozens of countries from around the entire world to defeat terrorism,” he added.
”Hamas is part of the Palestinian population and we do not consider them terrorists,” Abbas said.
”However, we ask Hamas to accept our political program and elections.” With Israel, ”we are trying to achieve peace with international legitimacy, with the Arab initiative and with agreements that have already been signed: the solution is that of two states, Israel and Palestine, near each other in security.”
”But it is clear,” he added, ”that the Israeli government under PM (Benyamin) Netanyahu no longer believes in the two-state solution.
This is a risk to the peace process because the actual situation on the ground is that of one state, Israel, that applies an apartheid system and we cannot accept this.”
”Our hope is to achieve a historic agreement with the support and approval of President (Donald) Trump: an independent Palestine on the basis of the 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital,” he said.
On former US president Barack Obama, ”he did his best but even with him the US did not do what is necessary to put an end to the occupation and for the two-state solution”, he said.