Egyptian scholar: Crimes of Israel cannot be forgotten

Egyptian scholar Kamal Helbawy rejects the application made by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to the UN for a partial statehood. Helbawy, who chairs the Centre for the Study of Terrorism in London, believes that the proposal is counterproductive and could give some sort of legitimacy to Israel. “The crimes of Israel cannot be forgotten and Israel cannot be trusted even for the project Abbas is proposing,” he said in an interview with IRNA. Abbas has applied for membership of the United Nations, which is seen as only a symbolic gesture of a statehood, but would be based on only the 1967 borders and effectively reward Israel's appropriation of its territory. “The Palestinians should come together to discus and should not accept any proposal from Abbas alone,” Helbawy said, favouring a referendum covering all of Palestine put forward by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “We cannot find many leaders speaking in favour of the Palestinians,” he said, referring to the supreme leader's latest analysis on Saturday. The Egyptian scholar also suggested that Israel's neighbours should follow Iran's example to give support to the plight of the Palestinian people to recover their territory. “After the Islamic Revolution, Iran dismissed the Israeli ambassador and gave their embassy to the Palestinians, that's what should be done by all the Arab countries,” he said. “No political solution to Palestine will be accepted without the total liberation of all Palestinian land going back to 1948,” Helbawy told IRNA. “Resistance remain very important and necessary, it should be continued until they free their land since the Israelis are changing the nature of al-Quds (Jerusalem) at present and trying to destroy (the Holy city),” he also warned. “They will not respect, as they did before any solution, resolution and proposal from the UN and veto of the Americans is very sensitive in this regard.”