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Mahmoud Abbas woos Palestinian militants

* PLO leader calls Israel ‘the Zionist enemy’

GAZA: Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas called Israel “the Zionist enemy” in a campaign speech at a militant stronghold on Tuesday, unprecedented language for the relative moderate who is expected to succeed Yasser Arafat.

The words were certain to stir concerns in Israel, where images of Abbas embracing fighters during the campaign for a Jan. 9 elections have led some to question hopes for reviving peace talks after Arafat’s death. Abbas was speaking after Israeli troops killed seven Palestinians at a strawberry farm in Gaza following a mortar attack by militants there that wounded Jewish settlers. “We are praying for the souls of our martyrs who fell today to the shells of the Zionist enemy,” he told a campaign rally in Khan Younis, a stronghold of militants waging a 4-year-old uprising.

Arafat, accused by Israel and the United States of obstructing peace, had not used such language in public for many years - more akin to the statements of Islamic militants who are committed to destroying Israel. Abbas has gone out of his way to woo militants during his campaign. He needs to win them over if he is to have any hope of securing a truce that could allow any resumption of negotiations with Israel.

Abbas opposes armed struggle and says he wants peace with Israel, but he has emphasised that he sees militants as heroes of the struggle for a state whose security must be assured. Disappointing some Israeli commentators, he has also stuck very firmly to Arafat’s old commitments to a Palestinian state on all of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem - captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. reuters

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