President: Palestinians “won’t kneel” or and won’t drop demands

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sent
a defiant message to Israel's leadership and U.S.
mediators Saturday, telling cheering supporters
that the Palestinians "won't kneel" and won't drop
demands for a capital in east Jerusalem.
Abbas' unusually fiery speech highlighted the wide
gaps between him and Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu on the outlines of a peace
deal. It also raised new doubts about the chances of
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to bridge those
gaps in coming weeks and come up with a
framework for an agreement.
Abbas adopted tough positions in the wide-ranging
speech, saying that "there will be no peace"
without a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem and
that he would not recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
He also suggested he would not continue
negotiations beyond a U.S.-set target date of the
end of April, and instead will resume his quest for
broader international recognition of a state of
Palestine by the United Nations and its various
agencies.
Abbas and Netanyahu were far part apart in their
positions when Kerry pressured them to resume
talks in late July after a five-year break. It appears
little progress has been made since then.
Kerry is expected to present his bridging proposals
for a framework agreement in coming weeks. He
was to meet this week with representatives of the
Arab League, presumably to win their backing for
U.S. proposals, but it's not clear when he would
formally present his ideas to Abbas and Netanyahu.
Both leaders face tough decisions on whether to
accept the U.S. ideas and alienate their base or
defy Kerry and risk being blamed for the collapse of
the negotiations.
A U.S. plan is expected to define Israel's pre-1967
war frontier as the starting point for negotiations
about the border between Israel and a future
Palestinian state, with some adjustments.
The Palestinians want a state in the West Bank,
Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured
in 1967, but are willing to swap some land to
enable Israel to keep some of the dozens of Jewish
settlements it has built on war-won land.
Netanyahu has not accepted the 1967 frontier as a
baseline, at least in public. In recent days, Israeli
media have quoted him as telling members of his
Likud Party that he would not accept an inclusion of
Jerusalem in Kerry's proposals.
Abbas aides have said they fear Kerry will settle for
a vague reference to Palestinian "aspirations" in
the city, without referring to east Jerusalem as a
capital.
On Saturday, Abbas spoke to several hundred
Palestinians activists from Jerusalem whom he had
invited to his headquarters in the West Bank city of
Ramallah.
The crowd whistled, chanted and clapped as the
normally low-key Abbas, widely known as Abu
Mazen, struck a tough tone.
"I say, listen, listen, the Palestinian people won't
kneel, and we tell the world, listen, listen the
Palestinian people won't kneel," he said at one
point, drawing chants of "Abu Mazen, Abu Mazen."
"Without east Jerusalem as a capital of the state of
Palestine, there will be no peace between us and
Israel," Abbas said.
Abbas also reiterated that he will not recognize
Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.
Netanyahu has raised such a demand, and there is
growing expectation that it will be included in
Kerry's proposal.
"We will not recognize it," Abbas said. "We will not
accept and it's our right not to recognize the Jewish
state."
Abbas has argued that the Palestinians have
already recognized the state of Israel and that
there is no need to do more. He has also said
recognizing Israel as a Jewish state would harm the
rights of Israel's nearly 2 million Arab citizens.
Israel says it needs such recognition as proof the
Palestinians are willing to end the conflict between
the two peoples once and for all.

Sent From David Aniemeka