Haaretz
Tevet 23, 5765
Mahmoud Abbas,
the leading candidate in next week's PA chairmansip election, on Monday
promised Palestinian refugees they'll be able to return home one day - his
most explicit comment yet on an explosive issue that has derailed peace
talks in the past.
Abbas was campaigning for a third straight day
in Gaza, trying to counter his image as a gray bureaucrat who might not
stand up to Israel by appealing to younger, more militant Palestinians
with hard-line pronouncements.
Following warm embraces with
militant leaders in refugee camps and his pledges that he would stand by
the gunmen in their struggle to avoid capture by Israel, Abbas took an
uncompromising stance on the refugee issue.
On Monday, addressing a
rally in Gaza City, Abbas endorsed the claim that Palestinian refugees and
their descendants from the 1948 war have the right to return to their
original homes.
"We will never forget the rights of the refugees,
and we will never forget their suffering. They will eventually gain their
rights, and the day will come when the refugees return home," Abbas told
the cheering crowd.
Abbas himself is a refugee from Safed, in
northern Israel.
All together, the refugees and their descendants
total about 4 million people. Almost unanimously, Israeli Jews reject the
claim, warning that resettling so many Arabs would undermine the Jewish
nature of the state.
The Israeli government believes Palestinian
refugees should be resettled in the Palestinian state that would be
created through peace talks or in the places where they have lived for the
past six decades.
Israel offers compensation for lost property, and
a previous, more moderate government agreed to take in a limited number of
refugees on the basis of reunification of families.
However, the
actual "right of return" has become a watchword of the Palestinian faith,
a promise made by Yasser Arafat to generations of refugees and their
families, waiting in refugee camps on Israel's borders for the moment when
their dream of return would come true - though many of their villages have
been replaced by Israeli towns and cities now, and some of their farmland
has turned into shopping malls, suburbs and factories.
Israel
won't allow Palestinian candidates to visit Mount
Israel on Monday
decided that it will not permit the candidates in the January 9
Palestinian Authority election for chairman to visit the Temple Mount in
Jerusalem to campaign.
Israel will, however, allow PLO chairman
Mahmoud Abbas, the leading contender in the election, to visit East
Jerusalem as part of his campaign for next Sunday's
elections.
Abbas' aides said Sunday that he had not yet decided
whether he wanted to visit the Temple Mount. "Although the issue has been
studied, no decision has been made on this matter," the aides said about a
possible visit. Abbas aides said they were considering holding election
rallies in a Jerusalem suburb such as A-Ram in north Jerusalem or Abu Dis
in the east, or in an East Jerusalem hotel.
In a campaign speech
Monday, Abbas vowed never to take up arms against militant
groups.
The remarks were the latest in a series of stump speeches
in which Abbas, who in the past has criticized the use of bombs and rifles
against Israelis, hailed militants as heroes of the
uprising.
Israel has demanded that Abbas, if elected, curb and
disarm militants. Reining in armed groups is also a key element of the
U.S.-backed road map.
Abbas, the front-runner in the January 9
race for Palestinian Authority Chairman, said Monday he was determined to
ensure the rule of law prevailed in the Palestinian territories, a message
to militant groups that attack Israeli targets. But he said he would
achieve that goal through "dialogue and discussion" as he pursued national
unity.
"Palestinians taking up arms against each other will not
happen," Abbas pledged.
"They are freedom fighters ... and should
live a dignified and safe life," said Abbas, whose call for an end to
violence in a 4-year-old Palestinian uprising has been rejected by
militants whose support he is courting in the January 9
election.
Also Monday, The Palestinian Minister for Prisoner
Affairs, Hisham Abdul Razek, petitioned Israel's High Court on Monday
against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to deny participation in
the elections to 8,000 residents of the territories jailed in Israeli
prisons.
Justice Salim Joubran determined the petition will be
brought before the High Court this coming Thursday.
The
violence-stalled road map, which lays out mutual steps for Israel and the
Palestinians toward the creation of a Palestinian state, calls for the PA
to begin "operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror, and
dismantling of terrorist capabilities and
infrastructure".
Palestinian gunmen, including a militant leader on
Israel's most-wanted list, hoisted Abbas, the candidate of the mainstream
Fatah faction, on their shoulders during a campaign appearance in the West
Bank town of Jenin last week.