| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Why the Palestinian president shocked his people over ‘right of return
By Joshua Mitnick,
TEL AVIV
Mahmoud Abbas touched off a storm of debate in the Middle East over the weekend after the Palestinian president seemingly conceded the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees, a symbolically loaded issue at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades.
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 news, Mr. Abbas said that although he is a refugee hailing from the Israeli town of Safed, he plans to remain in the West Bank rather than lay claim to his boyhood home as part of a peace deal.
“It’s my right to see it, but not to live there,” he said in English in a one-on-one interview. “I am a refugee, but I am living in Ramallah, and this is Palestine. I believe the West Bank and Gaza is Palestine, and the other parts are Israel.”
