Abbas: Arab violence against innocent Jews is “justified popular uprising”
[Yahoo! News] – [the PLO’s] Mahmoud Abbas referred to the last three months of violence Monday as a “justified popular uprising”.
Abbas’s comments came as a new poll shows widespread Palestinian support for ongoing attacks on Israelis. Later Monday, a Palestinian from east Jerusalem rammed his car into a crowded bus stop, wounding nine before bystanders shot him dead.
Israeli leaders have accused Abbas and other Palestinian leaders of inciting the violence with incendiary rhetoric. Abbas has previously refrained from either endorsing or condemning the attacks, often referring to the wave of violence as understandable but not in the best interests of the Palestinian people.
“We cannot ask the youth why they are going out (to revolt),” Abbas said in Ramallah. “They just despaired of the two-state solution.”
A poll released Monday found that two-thirds of Palestinians support the current wave of stabbings. Most Palestinians believe if the current individual attacks develop into an armed intifada, the violence might serve Palestinian national interests more than negotiations would.
Khalil Shikaki of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research conducted the survey, with a sample size of 1270 and a 3-percent margin of error.
Monday’s ramming is the latest in a three-month period of near-daily bloodshed. Since mid-September, Palestinians have killed 19 Israelis in stabbing, shooting and vehicular attacks…
In Monday’s attack, Abed Almohsin Hassoneh, 21, from the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, barreled his white Mazda into a bus stop on a crowded thoroughfare at the western entrance to the city, according to police spokeswoman Luba Samri. She said police found an axe in Hassoneh’s vehicle, suggesting he intended to attack Israelis.
Israel condemned Abbas’s comment that attacks are “justified.”
http://news.yahoo.com/police-palestinian-dead-ramming-israelis-wounding-9-135511784.html
