Mahmoud Abbas being interviewed on RT. Photo: Screenshot.

JNS.org – Having Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state is a condition for a future peace deal with Israel, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said at the Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Committee meeting in Morocco over the weekend.

“There can be no peace without stability, nor agreement without occupied east Jerusalem being recognized as the capital of the Palestinian state,” Abbas said, according to Agence France-Presse.

Abbas also said that U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations should “not serve as a cover for the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.”

“Israeli politicians like [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu understand exactly that the Palestinians don’t want to reach a final status agreement. Yet, some people see the alarming signs and ignore them,” Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, told JNS.org.