Left-wing Israelis who want to keep 2-state solution alive
Abbas meets the Israeli delegation [no better definition available]
Abbas receives delegation of Israeli ‘left-wing’ politicians in Ramallah
By Ma’an news
December 14, 2016
RAMALLAH — A delegation of former Israeli ministers and Knesset members from “left-wing” Zionist parties met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday evening in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
Ophir Pines-Paz who resigned from the government in 2006 because of “the inclusion of Lieberman and his party, whose leaders are infected with racist and anti-democratic statements, I am left with no other choice.”
The Israeli delegation, which included Labour Party members Ophir Pines-Paz, Shimon Shetreet, and Amram Mitzna, as well as Meretz party member Haim Oron, congratulated Abbas on his reappointment as the head of the Fatah party in November — despite a poll revealing on Tuesday that 57 percent of Palestinians were dissatisfied with the decision and 64 percent wanted Abbas to resign as president.
Abbas updated the delegation on the latest developments and international efforts related to the French initiative seeking to hold an international conference to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
While the conference was initially scheduled to take place later this month, Voice of Palestine radio reported on Wednesday that it would likely be postponed to January.
Abbas stressed the importance of international and Israeli support to the success of the French initiative.
Both Abbas and the Israeli delegation said that it was necessary to maintain a connection between Palestinians and Israelis who support peace based on the two-state solution.
Haim Oron. A founder of Peace Now, member of Meretz and, after Yossi Beilin resigned as Meretz leader, party chairman of Meretz
Meanwhile, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) called on Abbas to stop meeting with Israeli delegations in a statement released on Wednesday. [The formal leader of PFLP is Ahmad Sa’adat who is in prison.]
PFLP went on to say that no reasons could justify holding such meetings, which it claimed were used by Israel to promote its policies via the Palestinian Authority, adding that they could only bring “disaster” to the Palestinian people.
PFLP called for a popular movement against such meetings, and for the cessation of communication with the Israeli occupation.
While members of the international community have rested the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the discontinuation of illegal Israeli settlements and the establishment of a two-state solution, Israeli leaders have instead shifted further to the right as many Knesset members have called for an escalation of settlement building in the occupied West Bank, and some advocating for its complete annexation.
A number of Palestinian activists have criticized the two-state solution as unsustainable and unlikely to bring durable peace, proposing instead a binational state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the poll by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research revealed that 65 percent of respondents thought the two-state solution was no longer viable.