Palestinian FM says Israel ‘wants third intifida’

Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki on Monday accused Israel of seeking to spark “a third intifada,” as violence flared in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

“[Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu wants to instigate a third intifada. He wants to avoid problems that he is facing in the political and diplomatic arena, where he has failed miserably,” Malki told AFP in Vienna.

Malki said Netanyahu had committed a “grave mistake” by “violating the status quo” of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, home to the al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites and the holiest site in Judaism.

Much of the recent flareup of violence has centered around Palestinian claims that Israel is seeking to change the decades-old status quo, making the holy site a flashpoint in the conflict and the scene of frequent clashes between police and Palestinian youths.

Israel has repeatedly denied that it is intending to make changes to the current rules, and says the Palestinian accusations are incitement to violence.

“Netanyahu is widening the scope of the conflict from a political one with the Palestinians — which always has a possibility of finding a political solution — to an unlimited war with Muslims around the world,” Malki warned.

Calling on Israel to act “according to international law,” he said there was nevertheless still “a possibility to contain” the crisis.

The renewed violence, involving 18 stabbings of Israelis by Palestinians, and deadly clashes in the West Bank and along the Gaza border, has prompted international diplomatic efforts to defuse the tensions.

The upsurge in violence began on October 1, when an alleged Hamas cell shot dead a Jewish couple in the West Bank in front of their children.

It followed repeated clashes at the Temple Mount in September between Israeli security forces and Palestinian youths.

Malki made the comments ahead of a ceremony for the raising of the Palestinian flag at the United Nations office in the Austrian capital after the flag was raised at UN headquarters in New York on October 1.