Hamas Said To Be Calling on U.N. To Rescind 1947 Partition Plan
To mark 60 years since the United Nations plan for the partition of Palestine, Palestinian militant Islamic movement Hamas called Thursday for the U.N. to rescind the decision which led to the establishment of the State of Israel, Israel’s Army Radio reported.
“It is not shameful to correct a mistake. Palestine is Arab-Islamic land from the river to the sea, including Jerusalem, and Jews have no place there,” the radio quoted a Hamas statement as saying.
Meanwhile, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, on Thursday called an exchange of territories the only viable solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
“Only a territory exchange can prevent a situation where we have a half a state for one people and a half a state for another. It will allow us to attain a two state solution,” the minister and head of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party said.
Lieberman has repeatedly championed land swaps as a solution to the conflict and brought up the issue during a meeting with former British prime minister Tony Blair in Jerusalem in October.
Lieberman told Blair, now serving as the Middle East envoy for the Quartet of Mideast peace brokers, that any solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “must include Israel’s Arab citizens as well, when the basis for an agreement should be a land swap and a population transfer.”
Lieberman also said that “the international community has to make a concerted effort to resolve the issues of Israel’s security and the Palestinian economy.”
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