Security coordination with Israel would continue even after the United Nations’ expected recognition of a Palestinian state later this month, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas promised on Monday.

“We don’t want to isolate Israel but to live with it in peace and security,” Abbas said, adding that the PA had been pushing Arab states to recognize Israel.

“We don’t want to delegitimize Israel. We want to legitimize ourselves,” the PA president declared during an address to a group of some 20 Israeli intellectuals who had sought the meeting to urge him to proceed with his UN bid despite their own government’s objections. Journalists were also invited to attend.

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Currently, Abbas said, the PA and Israel “have good coordination to prevent terror and keep the situation calm and quiet. We will continue to do our job. Security will prevail as long as I am in office.”

On Sunday, he added, he had stressed to his Fatah party’s Revolutionary Council that security was important to the Palestinians as well as to Israel.

If the United Nations did recognize a Palestinian state, Abbas pledged, he would then return to negotiations on the details of a final-status agreement.

“Our first, second and third priority is negotiations,” he said. “There is no other way to solve this. No matter what happens at the United Nations, we have to return to negotiations.”

For more, go to Haaretz.com

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