Mahmoud Abbas, de facto President of the Palestinian Authority [1], is currently on a visit to the United States. He has met in particular with some thirty leaders of Jewish and Zionist organisations (e.g. the Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations) and with President Barack Obama.

In the course of these meetings, he stated that:

– Two rounds of proximity talks were conducted by George Mitchell between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to make headway on the "two-state solution".

– The Palestinian Authority will not consent to any solution that excludes East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. It accepts, however, the principle of a land swap, even though no concrete agreement in this regard has yet to be reached.

– « I would never deny Jewish right to the land of Israel », a formulation which acknowledges the right of all Jews the world over to Israeli nationality, while there are 7 million stateless Palestinians with no national rights.

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[1] The mandate of President Mahmoud Abbas started on 15 January 2005 and ended on 9 January 2009. He has abusively kept power until the present time. By law, it is the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council who becomes acting President of the Palestinian National Authority until the next elections. Consequently, Hamas member Aziz Duwaid has been president de jure of the Palestinian Authority since the elected term of Mahmoud Abbas officially expired.