Abbas: Israel to blame for violence, not Palestinians

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has accused Israel of causing the recent escalation in violence in Jerusalem and the West Bank while insisting that he is acting to calm tensions.

“I am in favor of a nonviolent popular campaign, but I am against violence and using weapons,” Abbas said in an interview published Wednesday in the Hebrew daily Haaretz. “I have made that clear several times — we don’t want to return to the cycle of violence.”

Abbas, who spoke to the newspaper from his headquarters in Ramallah, blamed alleged changes in arrangements enabling visits by Jews to the flashpoint Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem — changes repeatedly denied by Israel — for straining tensions and fueling the violence.

“We didn’t strive for violence and we didn’t act to escalate [the situation], but the aggression against the al-Aqsa mosque and the worshipers lead things there,” he said. “We are trying to act all the time so that it won’t become worse.”

Violence flared up over the last three weeks in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, with Palestinian protesters focusing on events on the Temple Mount, where Israeli police have repeatedly clashed with demonstrators.

Abbas also asserted that two attacks on Palestinians by Jewish terrorists over the past year, as well as ongoing harassment by settlers, were behind the uptick in violence. In July 2014, the Israeli Arab teen Muhammad Abu Khdeir was burned to death by three Jews in a revenge attack after Palestinian terrorists kidnapped and killed three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. A year later, a firebombing attack on a home in the West Bank Palestinian village of Duma killed 18-month-old Ali Dawabsha, and his parents. Israeli authorities assert that the attack was carried out by Jewish terrorists.

“How do you expect the Palestinian street to respond after the murder of the boy Muhammad Abu Khdeir, the burning of the Dawabsha home, the aggression of the settlers and the damage to property in front of the eyes of the soldiers?” he said.

“The Palestinians are responding with stones and Israel responds with live fire as per the government’s decision — and that is very grave,” Abbas said, referring to recent moves to toughen Israeli rules of engagement.

He also lamented a push by Netanyahu to increase the practice of demolishing the homes of Palestinians convicted or suspected of terrorism.

“Now they want to demolish homes and to deploy more forces, which will just increase the hatred. If there is no friction, there is no confrontation. Someone who is looking for agreement would act to prevent friction and to calm things down — unless he has other plans,” he said.

Speaking in the wake of a meeting Tuesday of top Palestinian officials on the latest surge in violence, Abbas also declared he was uninterested in raising tensions.

“We’re committed to the agreements,” he said and added that he has told the Israelis that the Palestinians don’t want “military and security escalations.” He said the message has been delivered to Palestinian security forces and activists.

“We want to reach a diplomatic solution through peaceful means and not any another solution,” Abbas said. “We want to mitigate the chances of destruction and loss that will afflict both sides from this situation.”

But, Abbas added, “at the same time, we will protect ourselves.”

Despite public calls from Netanyahu and Israeli officials for him to condemn the recent terror attacks on Israelis, the Palestinian leadership has not denounced the killings. On Sunday, the PA condemned Israel for killing two Palestinian stabbers, the first of whom had killed two Israelis in the Old City of Jerusalem and badly injured a third. The second was an East Jerusalem resident who stabbed a 15-year-old Jewish youth outside the Old City.

In a written communique published on the official news agency Wafa, PA government spokesman Ihab Bseiso called on the international community to intervene following “the killing of two young men in occupied Jerusalem and the series of incursions into cities and villages in the West Bank.”

The statement made no mention of the fact that the two dead Palestinians had been killed while carrying out stabbing attacks against Israeli civilians.

In a speech to the UN last week, Abbas claimed that “extremist Israeli groups are committing repeated, systematic incursions upon Al-Aqsa Mosque, aimed at imposing a new reality.” He said the Israeli government was “allowing extremists, under the protection of Israeli occupying forces and accompanying ministers and Knesset members, to enter the Mosque at certain times.”

Netanyahu denounced his accusations as lies and charged him with inciting violence.

AP contributed to this report.