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Abbas Vows to Avoid Uprising against Israel

02 November 2012 04:37 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. PNA leader Mahmoud Abbad reiterated his commitment to peaceful means and vowed that he will not allow another armed uprising against Israel while he is in office, APA reports quoting Haaretz.

â€œWe will not go back to terrorism and violence," Abbas was quoted as saying. "We will only operate through diplomacy and through peaceful means."
The statement was made in the run-up to parliamentary elections in Israel and the UN General Assembly vote on upgrading Palestinian authorityâ€™s status from â€œobserverâ€ to â€œnon-member stateâ€ due on November 15 or 29.
The 77-year-old Palestinian leader said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 that as long as he is in power "there will no third armed Intifada [revolt against Israel]. Never."
"We don’t want to use terror. We don’t want to use force. We don’t want to use weapons. We want to use diplomacy. We want to use politics. We want to use negotiations. We want to use peaceful resistance. That’s it," Abbas said.
"Palestine now for me is ’67 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is now and forever... This is Palestine for meâ€¦ I believe that the West Bank and Gaza is Palestine and the other parts are Israel," he went on
In a symbolic concession, Abbas said that he had no claims for Safed, the town where he lived as a child and which is currently a part of Northern Israel. He fled it as a refugee during the 1948 war.
"I visited Safed before once. But I want to see Safed. It’s my right to see it, but not to live there," he said.
The First Intifada lasted from 1987 to 1993 and ended in 1994. After the uprising the Palestinian National Authority headed by Yasser Arafat was established in the Gaza Strip and on the West Bank.
The Second Intifada, the violent uprising of Palestinians living in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, began on September 28, 2000. It only stopped with Arafatâ€™s death in November 2004.