Palestinian leader rejects intl peace blueprint
Give us a state so we can be even more belligerent?
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suggested Saturday that he would reject a peacemaking blueprint put forward by international mediators, saying he would not agree to any proposal that disregards Palestinian conditions for resuming peacemaking.
Abbas, who returned to the West Bank on Saturday after submitting a statehood bid at the United Nations a day earlier, told reporters accompanying him that he was still studying the proposal by the peacemaking Quartet - the U.S., European Union, United Nations and Russia.
But he appeared to tip his hand by saying that “we will not deal with any initiative” that doesn’t demand a halt to Israeli settlement construction or negotiations based on borders that existed before the 1967 war when Israel captured land the Palestinians claim for their state.
The Quartet statement made no such demands.