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PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas addressed the parliament of Turkey on Thursday.
The speech was filled with lies like "Israel's real goal from the war of extermination in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem is to uproot the Palestinian presence from our homeland, and to forcibly displace the Palestinians from Palestine once again. " His text included the words "genocide" and "starvation." He received plenty of standing ovations during the speech.
He didn't say that in his speech to the Turkish parliament on Thursday.
There is one small line that was in his written speech (it is unclear if it was said exactly like this, around 6:55 in the video), where he mentioned how all of Jerusalem was Palestinian and non-negotiable. But he went beyond that:
For you and for us, it is a red line. There is no one among us, nor from us, who would give up an atom of the soil of Palestine or a stone of Jerusalem, which is the trust of religion and the trust of history.
These speeches are finely tuned, and every word is chosen carefully. His not mentioning a two state solution, or that Israel has any rights to the lands at all, is deliberate and significant. And his saying that Muslims will not give up an atom of the soil of Palestine - not Jerusalem, but Palestine - was equally deliberate.
When he says no one would give up an inch of "Palestine" he is clearly not referring to the West Bank and Gaza. That was a purposeful message to Turkey that the ultimate goal is all of Israel, and any two state solution is merely a stage towards that goal. Yasir Arafat famously said in 1974 that the entire land would be captured in stages, and nothing that Abbas has ever said has contradicted it.
An Abbas advisor said this more explicitly last year. That is certainly what Palestinians are taught in schools and told in mosques, and they've said that in public opinion polls - any peace deal is meant to be temporary on the way to taking over all of Israel.
Now Abbas said it, a little ellipically, but in a way that the audience in Turkey and the Muslim world understood perfectly.
