Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa says Hamas attack is a pretext that does not contribute to achieving the two-state goal

The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, said this Friday that the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel served as a pretext that does not contribute to achieving the goal of creating a Palestinian state and an Israeli state.

Faced with criticism in Golegán (Santarém), including from BE, for telling the head of the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Portugal that some Palestinians “should not have started” this war with Israel, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa began to declare: “I didn’t say that. No, you shouldn’t comment on something you can’t hear when you can’t hear it.”

“What I said was this: in this particular case, the terrorist attack, as it occurred, served as a pretext (…) that did not contribute to the achievement of our goal, namely the creation of a Palestinian state and an Israeli state.” He emphasized that “this gave a reason to those who are opponents of this.”

“And then I even added, ‘Fortunately, Palestinians in general are not to be confused with a terrorist attack by a very specific group,'” he said.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa emphasized that “Portugal always takes the same position”, that “there must be two states, a Palestinian state and an Israeli state, which must coexist peacefully” and “everything that contributes to this in terms of peace, Portugal supports ” “.

“Anything that makes this difficult, whether on the Israeli side or on the Palestinian side – and for decades there have been groups on both sides, namely radical or more radical groups who at certain points did not support this path – provides excuses,” he continued.

To the President of the Republic, “it seems that this obviously happened, as it has happened many times on the other side, with the radical Israeli side, with behavior such as the placement of settlements or the occupation of a certain type of territory.”

“However, it is clear that acts of even greater violence, such as terrorist attacks with their consequences, later serve as a pretext,” he reiterated.

Answering the question whether humanitarian law is respected, the head of state emphasized that it “is violated either by terrorist acts in which children, women, and innocent victims die, or by retaliatory actions to them, as a result of which children, women, and innocent victims die.”

“Humanitarian law, the United Nations has said, applies to everyone, be it those who actually initiate terrorist acts such as the first one at this very last stage, or those acts that result in the casualties of innocent victims,” he added.

The President of the Republic told the head of the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Portugal that some Palestinians “should not have started” a war with Israel and advised them to behave moderately and peacefully.

“If we want to be fair, we must condemn the violence on both sides, at least, and condemn the occupation, which is the root of the problem. If we want to be fair. And the president repeated the attack 7 [de outubro], but did not mention the residents of Gaza. This is unfair,” Nabil Abuznaid told reporters.