Israel already knew of Abbas willingness to waive right of return

Israel’s Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, has pointed out that the position of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas regarding Palestinian refugees’ right of return is nothing new. Abbas told an Israeli television channel that he has “no right” to live in the village of his birth, Safed, which is now in Israel.

“In private conversations, too, Abbas has expressed his willingness to concede the right of return,” Barak told Israel’s Army Radio on Sunday.

In the Channel 2 interview, Abbas also expressed his reservations about “terror” and said that there would be “no third armed intifada [uprising]; never.”

Palestine, said Abbas, is the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. “This is now and forever… This is Palestine for me. I am a refugee, but I am living in Ramallah. I believe that the West Bank and Gaza is Palestine and the other parts are Israel,” the PA President added in the interview to mark the ninety-fifth anniversary of the infamous Balfour Declaration.

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