Raam Leader Mansour Abbas: We Are Working To Establish Palestinian State

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Raam leader Mansour Abbas may be the first Arab leader who is part of an Israeli government but this apparently does not prevent him from dreaming of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

In an interview with the Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, Abbas (no relation to Palestinian chairman Mahmoud Abbas) said that “we wish to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem and to realize our civil, national and religious rights in a civilian system with Arab-Jewish relations based on equality and not subordination. We wish to achieve peace, mutual security, partnership and tolerance between the two nations since we live in the shadow of a bloody conflict.”

Abbas estimated that “Mahmoud Abbas will make every effort to push for an agreement and solution for the benefit of our Palestinian people.”

Abbas explained why he had joined the Bennett-Lapid coalition. “This is the strategy of the more moderate, pragmatic stream of Islam which opposes violence and is a source of inspiration for us. This is based on the understanding of the special circumstances of Arabs in Israel, who are in the words of our leader Sheikh Abdollah Nimer Darwish ‘like those living in the stomach of a whale'”

Abbas claimed that Hamas had not criticized his entry into the government just as the Islamic movement in Israel does not interfere with Hamas in Gaza.

Abbas claimed that even on these issues there were coalition “understandings” which “are broader than the coalition agreement and we are moving step by step towards a diplomatic agreement. There are hopes that we can accomplish with this government more than is written in the agreements.”

Abbas also tried to compare his party’s activity to that of Chareidi parties who “only received budgetary allocations via coalition agreements.”

MK Miki Zohar (Likud) responded by stating that “this declaration must awake us to the tragedy which could happen during the tenure of the new, awful government which has arisen in Israel. Make no mistake -this is a government which will not hesitate to do anything to stay in power. After selling the Negev, handing the interior committee and disproportionate budgets to Mansour Abbas, now it’s time that they sell Israel’s security to allow Bennett and Saar to continue their roles in this irresponsible and dangerous left-wing government.”

MK Kari (Likud) said that “this government of deceit has sold all of its values. What does it matter to them to endanger Israel and return the Palestinians to the stage after more than a decade in which they became irrelevant?”