United Arab List leader Mansour Abbas called on Israel and the US to recognize Palestine. Abbas said Palestine already exists as a state and that most of the world recognizes it.
Speaking at his party’s conference in Taibeh, Abbas said his party was seeking peace between Israel and Palestine.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, said he would not allow a Palestinian state to be established in Gaza or the occupied West Bank as long as he remained in office. Netanyahu said he opposed a Palestinian state being controlled by Iran and used the Hebrew term “Judea and Samaria” for Gaza and the West Bank.
Likud projected to lose seats
Parliamentary elections in Israel are scheduled to take place on October 27. Opinion polls show that Netanyahu’s Likud party and its coalition partners are falling short of the 61 seats needed to form a government.
Likud currently holds 32 seats. A poll published on Friday projected that the party would fall to 20 seats, while another poll published on August 19 estimated that Likud and its far-right and ultra-Orthodox partners would hold a combined 51 seats.
This result means that the bloc would be 10 seats short of the number needed to secure a majority in parliament.