Fatah senior leader: Israel killed the two-state solution

Member of Fatah executive committee Tawfiq al-Tirawi has said that Israel killed the two-state solution, Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz has said.

Al-Tirawi told the newspaper: “You say that the Israeli right wing does not want peace with the Palestinians, and my opinion is that the right, left and centre in Israel are not willing to give the minimum for the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

He said that he has never believed in the two-state solution and he opposed the recognition of Israel “free of charge” from the beginning. “I was always convinced that the more we conceded to Israel, the more it would want. We gave up a great deal: in the solution, in Resolution 242, in the (recognition of the) existence of the State of Israel and in agreeing to a state within the 1967 borders. But Israel is not content with a state (within the 1967 borders), and it also wants part of the West Bank,” he said.

Al-Tirawi continued: “I was born in the village of Tira [today Tirat Yehuda] in the area of Lydda [Lod in today’s central Israel], and I don’t know it at all. I never visited there. Who said I didn’t want Tira?”

He also said that Fatah was the first Palestinian faction to call for one multi-national state for Muslims, Jews and Christians, similar to how his grandfathers used to live before 1948.