Abbas: Future Palestinian State Should Be Demilitarized

Tells visiting Israelis he prefers to spend money on education

Jason Ditz 

Posted onAugust 28, 2018CategoriesNewsTagsIsrael, Palestine

Speaking to a group of visiting Israeli academics on Tuesday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas endorsed a long-standing Israeli demand for Palestinian statehood, saying he believes the future state should be totally demilitarized.

Mahmoud Abbas

Israeli officials have previously suggested that for the Palestinians to ever have a state, they would never be allowed to have control over their own security, would have no military and no control over their own borders.

Abbas said he doesn’t want a military, and wants “unarmed police forces with batons, not guns.” He says he would prefer to dedicated Palestinian funding to education instead of to maintaining an army.

Officials say Abbas has made similar comments in support of a demilitarized Palestine in the past. He had previously suggested that NATO could be brought in to police the border, which he said should be on the 1967 lines.

It’s unclear what Israel’s response will be, but apparently this is not a new position for Abbas to take, so it’s liable not to advance the cause of peace substantially. Moreover, the talk of dedicating his budget to education may have been targeted to his audience, in this case academics.

https://news.antiwar.com/2018/08/28/abbas-future-palestinian-state-should-be-demilitarized/