Arab's refusal of 1947 UN plan a mistake
Arabs made a "mistake" by rejecting a 1947 UN proposal that would have created a Palestinian state alongside the nascent Israel, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview aired on Friday.
Palestinian leaders have always insisted that General Assembly Resolution 181, which paved the way for Jewish statehood in parts of then British-ruled Palestine, must be resisted by Arabs who went to war over it.
"At that time, 1947, there was Resolution 181, the partition plan, Palestine and Israel. Israel existed. Palestine diminished. Why?" he told Israel's top-rated Channel Two television, speaking in English.
When the interviewer suggested the reason was Jewish leaders' acceptance of the plan and its rejection by the Arabs, Abbas said: "I know, I know. It was our mistake. It was our mistake. It was an Arab mistake as a whole. But do they punish us for this mistake (for) 64 years?"
Decades of regional fighting have hinged on challenges to Israel's existence and expansion. Netanyahu's office declined immediate comment on Abbas's remarks, which Channel Two broadcast over the Jewish Sabbath.
Hamas opposes permanent coexistence with the Jewish state and has drawn core support from Palestinians dispossessed in the 1947-1948 war, when Israel overran Arab forces to take territory beyond that allotted it by Resolution 181.
"No one is authorised to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people and no one is authorised to wipe out any of the historical rights of our people," said Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza.
"There is no need for Abu Mazen (Abbas) to beg the Occupation," Barhoum said, using a Hamas term for Israel.
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