Blitzer asks United Arab List leader

CNN’s: Wolf Blitzer asks Palestinian-Israeli Knesset member Mansour Abbas if the October 7 terror attack by Hamas has damaged the Palestinian cause.

MK Mansour Abbas, head of the United Arab List Party (known by its Hebrew acronym Ra’am), called on Palestinian terrorist factions to lay down their arms and join the Palestinian Authority in engaging Israel diplomatically to achieve a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“In order to move forward, the Palestinian militant groups need to take down their arms,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

“They need to work hand in hand with the Palestinian Authority in order to realize a national movement that would aspire for a State of Palestine with a peaceful resolution alongside with the State of Israel.”

Abbas, whose Islamist Knesset faction became the first Arab party to join an Israeli coalition government in 2021, added that the use of violence by Palestinian armed factions has “always failed” and that the “Palestinian people were the ones to pay the price” for these actions, noting over 15,000 Palestinians who have been killed since the start of the war.

The Arab lawmaker said that he and his party “categorically” condemned Hamas’ October 7 attack on southern Israeli communities, and specifically the targeting of civilians, as “inhumane” and contradictory to the values of Islam.

“This cannot be discussed and cannot be justified because it goes against all human values and religious values as well,” he said.