RAMALLAH, November 29, 2011 (WAFA) – The three Palestinian Arab dailies Tuesday focused on President Mahmoud Abbas’ visit to Austria, and Egypt’s first day of polling in the parliamentary elections on Monday.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida featured Abbas’ meeting with Austrian President Heinz Fischer and Abbas’ address at the Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue, in Vienna, where he stressed that the Palestinian leadership and the Quartet are still waiting for a clear, written Israeli position regarding the issues of security and borders.
Reporting also on Abbas’ address to the forum, al-Quds chose to highlight his expectations that the Palestinian presidential and parliamentary elections will be held in May 2012.
Al-Ayyam’s main front page story reported on a heavy turnout rate, reaching 70% in some polling stations, and the smooth voting in the first parliamentary elections in Egypt following the removal of Hosni Mubarak.
The daily printed a picture of Egyptians lined up, waiting to cast their votes, in Cairo on Monday.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel will consider transferring the Palestinian tax revenues it has been withholding for two months, which was met with grave refusal from Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who threatened to resign in retaliation for releasing the money to the Palestinian Authority.
The daily’s headline quoted Netanyahu saying: “We’re not interested in leading the PA to collapse.”
Al-Quds newspaper reported that Prime Minister Salam Fayyad accused the Israeli government of working to undermine the PA and called on the international community to pressure Israel to release the Palestinian tax money, during the signing of a budget support agreement that provides a €10 million contribution by France to the PA budget for 2011.
Al-Quds editorial discussed the 64th anniversary of the United Nations Partition resolution 181 on November 29, 1947, which provided for the establishment of a Jewish state and an Arab state, with Jerusalem as a corpus separatum under a special international regime.
The editorial questioned the legality and historical justice of the decision itself, and condemned the Israeli refusal to allow the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The daily also praised Abbas’ application for Palestinian UN membership, and called on the international community and the UN to force Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian Territory, and to support the establishment of a Palestinian state.
R.Q./F.J.
