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Netanyahu: Abbas op-ed distorts historical facts

[ssba]

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday accused PA President Mahmoud Abbas of ‘blatantly distorting historical facts’ in a New York Times op-ed published on Monday. PM Netanyahu’s office released a statement on the op-ed, which refuted the claim that Israeli security forces expelled the Palestinians from the land during the War of Independence in 1948. “It was the Arab armies, with Palestinian help, who attacked the Jewish state in order to destroy it,” Netanyahu said. The prime minister stressed that the Palestinians rejected the UN partition plan in 1947 while Jewish leaders were willing to accept it. Questioning Abbas’s interpretation of the Palestinian refugee issue, Netanyahu said, “The Palestinian refugees were an outcome of that war, not a cause. Some Palestinian leaders themselves urged the Palestinians to vacate the land in order to make it easier for the Arab armies to fight for the destruction of Israel.”

In the op-ed, Abbas calls on the international community to recognise a Palestinian state at the United Nations in September and to support its submission to join the international organisation.