‘Abbas says Israel agrees to state based on 1967 lines’

Haaretz reports that PA President Mahmoud Abbas says during a televised interview that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders.

Haaretz does not say which station televised the statement, nor does Abbas indicate when Netanyahu agreed to these outlines.

The Palestinian leader says he will demand from Israel and the US that it outline specific borders. If Israel does not respond, “we have what to do,” in an apparent veiled threat to take the Palestinian demands to international forces.

“We will not go into a discussion about area A, B, and C. We need each state to finally determine their borders. Israel is the only state in the world with no known borders,” he says.

“We are willing to wait a day, a week or a month,” Abbas says, according to the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency, “but not 20 more years.” He says officials Saeb Erekat and Majid Farraj will meet with US Secretary of State John Kerry to discuss the border issue.

“If they agree, we will be free with our borders. We will not accept that Israel launches a war against us every two years,” he adds.

However, Abbas adds that the Palestinians “will not forgive” Israel and it “will not get away with its crimes” against the Palestinian people.

The PA president said rival parties such as Hamas must not attempt to overrun the government.

“The decision about peace and war is in the hands of the (Palestinian) Authority or otherwise it will be chaos,” he says.

“Hamas has a shadow government in Gaza, they have undersecretaries for ministries, and if that continues it will put the national unity at risk,” he says.

Abbas concludes by criticizing Hamas for the “criminal” public executions of dozens of “collaborators” with Israel.