Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced scepticism on Sunday over an apparent concession from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on a major sticking point in any future peace negotiations.
Comments by Abbas on Thursday that he had no permanent claim on the town of Safed, from which he was driven during a 1948 war, were widely seen as hinting he was dropping a demand for a right of return of Palestinian refugees to homes now in Israel.
"I watched President Abbas's interview at the weekend, and I heard that since then he has already managed to recant," Netanyahu told his cabinet, urging Abbas to return to direct peace negotiations, suspended since 2010, to clarify his positions.
Abbas's remarks, to Israeli Channel 2 TV, were also interpreted by some commentators as an attempt to soften his defiance of Israel and the United States over his plans to ask the U.N. General Assembly to upgrade the Palestinians to a non-member state. Touching on the refugee question--one of the most emotional issues for Palestinians in their dispute with Israel--Abbas said: "I visited Safed before, once. But I want to see Safed. It's my right to see it, but not live there."
But on Saturday, Abbas appeared to pull back from his comments, telling Egypt's al-Hayat television in Arabic: "Speaking about Safed was a personal position and it did not mean conceding the right of return."
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is considering whether to challenge Netanyahu in a Jan. 22 election, said that in his own peace talks with Abbas, the Palestinian side had made clear it had no intention of changing the demographic character of the Jewish state through a mass return of refugees. At those U.S.-backed negotiations held between 2006 and 2009, which failed to clinch a land-for-peace deal, the possibility that Israel would allow a few thousand refugees to return on humanitarian grounds was raised, Olmert added, in a wrtten statement.
Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister who oversaw talks with Abbas under Olmert's stewardship, accused Netanyahu of failing to "embrace" what she saw as a possible peace overture on Abbas' part. She accused Netanyahu's government of making Israel "a country where peace has become a dirty word."
Abbas has been refusing to resume peace talks with Israel unless it halts settlement building in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, construction that Palestinians say will deny them a viable state. He has, however, promised to return to negotiations immediately after the U.N. status upgrade vote.
Comments by Abbas on Thursday that he had no permanent claim on the town of Safed, from which he was driven during a 1948 war, were widely seen as hinting he was dropping a demand for a right of return of Palestinian refugees to homes now in Israel.
"I watched President Abbas's interview at the weekend, and I heard that since then he has already managed to recant," Netanyahu told his cabinet, urging Abbas to return to direct peace negotiations, suspended since 2010, to clarify his positions.
Abbas's remarks, to Israeli Channel 2 TV, were also interpreted by some commentators as an attempt to soften his defiance of Israel and the United States over his plans to ask the U.N. General Assembly to upgrade the Palestinians to a non-member state. Touching on the refugee question--one of the most emotional issues for Palestinians in their dispute with Israel--Abbas said: "I visited Safed before, once. But I want to see Safed. It's my right to see it, but not live there."
But on Saturday, Abbas appeared to pull back from his comments, telling Egypt's al-Hayat television in Arabic: "Speaking about Safed was a personal position and it did not mean conceding the right of return."
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is considering whether to challenge Netanyahu in a Jan. 22 election, said that in his own peace talks with Abbas, the Palestinian side had made clear it had no intention of changing the demographic character of the Jewish state through a mass return of refugees. At those U.S.-backed negotiations held between 2006 and 2009, which failed to clinch a land-for-peace deal, the possibility that Israel would allow a few thousand refugees to return on humanitarian grounds was raised, Olmert added, in a wrtten statement.
Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister who oversaw talks with Abbas under Olmert's stewardship, accused Netanyahu of failing to "embrace" what she saw as a possible peace overture on Abbas' part. She accused Netanyahu's government of making Israel "a country where peace has become a dirty word."
Abbas has been refusing to resume peace talks with Israel unless it halts settlement building in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, construction that Palestinians say will deny them a viable state. He has, however, promised to return to negotiations immediately after the U.N. status upgrade vote.
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