RAMALLAH // The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said yesterday there is “no way” he will recognise Israel as a Jewish state and accept a Palestinian capital in just a portion of Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.
The comments signalled that the gaps between Mr Abbas and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, remain wide after seven months of mediation efforts by John Kerry, the US secretary of state.
Mr Kerry made an unannounced visit to Jordan yesterday to discuss the peace process.
Mr Abbas told the youth wing of his Fatah party that he withstood international pressure in the past, when he sought UN recognition of a state of Palestine over Washington’s objections.
He said he would stand firm again, particularly over the demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state.
“They are pressing and saying: ‘No peace without the Jewish state,’” he said, though not spelling out who is applying the pressure. “There is no way. We will not accept.”
Mr Netanyahu on Tuesday urged Mr Abbas to recognise Israel as a Jewish state and to “abandon the fantasy” of flooding it with returning Palestinian refugees.
His remarks sparked a furious reaction from the Palestinians, who denounced his demand and said it had effectively put the final nail in the coffin of the talks.
Israel has repeatedly insisted there will be no peace deal without addressing the issue of recognition, and a clause relating to this has been inserted into Kerry’s as-yet-unpublished framework proposal.
For the Palestinians, the issue is intimately entwined with the fate of their refugees who were forced out of their homes or fled in 1948 when Israel became a state.
They see Mr Netanyahu’s demand as a way of sidestepping a negotiated solution to the refugee issue.
The Palestinians have also long viewed Israeli settlement construction as a major obstacle to peace talks, arguing that Israel is actively building on land that should be part of their future state.
Mr Netanyahu has also alluded to Israel’s demand to retain a military presence along the Jordan Valley, which runs down the eastern flank of the West Bank, in any future deal, saying he would not cede security to foreign peacekeepers.
Mr Kerry is expected to present his ideas for the contours of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal soon, but it appears increasingly unlikely he can get the sides to accept such a framework by an April 29 deadline.
Mr Kerry held talks with King Abdullah II in Aqaba, Jordan, in a bid to gain support for the framework.
Jordan is one of only two Arab states to have signed a peace treaty with Israel, and King Abdullah holds a special position because the 1994 accord recognises his country’s “historic” role in caring for Muslim holy sites in east Jerusalem.
Last month, Jordan warned that it might review the peace treaty after Israeli MPs began a debate on allowing Jewish prayers at Jerusalem’s sensitive Al Aqsa mosque compound, saying the kingdom’s custodianship was “not a privilege granted by Israel”.
Mr Kerry was expected to return to Washington yesterday.
* Associated Press with additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
