The Palestinian Authority and Hamas slammed comments by Ra’am Party leader Knesset Member Mansour Abbas on Wednesday, after he stated during an interview with Channel 12 that “Israel was born a Jewish state, that was the decision of the people, and the question is not what is the identity of the state — it was born this way and it will remain this way.”
Abbas added that what was important was how Israel’s Arab minority can be integrated into Israel.
Responding to the remarks, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas said, “These irresponsible statements are consistent with the calls of extremists in Israel to displace the Palestinians and harm the status of the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque and the history of the Palestinian people,” according to the Palestinian news site WAFA.
“Mansour Abbas, with such statements, represents only himself, and does not represent the Palestinian people at home and everywhere in the world,” Abbas added.
Mahmoud Abbas’s party, Fatah, separately condemned Abbas’s comments as well.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Liberation Organization Executive Committee – consisting of representatives of several Palestinian factions – expressed “strong condemnation and denunciation” of Mansour Abbas’s statements, I24 reported.
Hamas released a statement as well, saying that Abbas’s comments constitute “a clear violation of the Palestinian national consensus that rejects and denounces the Zionist claims.”
Additional Arab parties also condemned Abbas, accusing him of adopting “the Zionist narrative.”