Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s call for a two-state solution is a “positive development” but says the proof would be a return to negotiations.
“The true test of the credibility and seriousness of this stance is for the Israeli government to return to the negotiation table immediately,” he told the United Nations General Assembly in a speech that largely lambasted Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Israel captured East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza – areas that Palestinians seek for an independent state – in the 1967 Middle East war.
US-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed in 2014.
Efforts to reach a two-state deal, which involves an Israeli and Palestinian state existing side by side, have long been stalled.
“Our confidence in achieving peace based on justice and international law is unfortunately waning because of Israel’s occupation policies,” Abbas said, calling Israel an “apartheid regime”.
Palestinians and rights groups say Israel has entrenched its control of the occupied Palestinian territories through its military rule over millions of Palestinians and persistent settlement construction.
Some have cast doubt over whether a two-state solution remained feasible as a result.
“Israel has not left us any land on which we can establish our independent state because of its frantic settlement expansion,” Abbas said.
Read the article in the Mandurah Mail and The West Australian.