Faced with Israeli trade and travel restrictions, a stagnant economy and a flood of cheap imports from Asia, Palestinian businessmen are increasingly seeking their fortunes in China. Demand for Chinese visas among business owners in the occupied West Bank is so high that the Chinese consul regularly visits the city of Hebron to stamp their passports.
Marking 40 years of Israeli occupation, President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday internal fighting had brought Palestinians to the brink of civil war. Yet Abbas, recalling what he described as the Arabs’ ”great defeat” by Israel in six days of war that began on June 5 1967, assured his people that statehood was within reach.
Arab leaders on Thursday endorsed a peace plan to end a decades-old conflict with Israel and the Palestinian president warned of more violence if the ”hand of peace” was rejected. Speaking at the end of an Arab summit in Riyadh, Mahmoud Abbas urged Israel not to waste the chance for peace, and called for a committee led by Saudi Arabia to pursue it.
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/ 30 November 2006
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, after meeting United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on a new push for Middle East peace, said on Thursday that talks on a unity government with Hamas had reached a ”dead end”. The US wants to strengthen Abbas, a moderate who has been caught in a power struggle with the Hamas Islamist group.
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/ 25 September 2006
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday put off talks with Hamas aimed at breaking a stalemate over forming a unity government, in a sign of deep internal divisions. Abbas’s aides had said the president was expected to travel to Gaza on Tuesday for talks with leaders of the ruling Hamas Islamist movement, including Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.