Israeli leaders livid over Abbas condolence letter

JERUSALEM: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has outraged Israeli leaders by calling the attempted assassin of a Jewish ultra-rightwing rabbi a “martyr” and the soldiers who killed him “terrorist gangs.”
Abbas on Sunday sent a letter of condolence to the family of 32-year-old Muataz Hijazi, killed by Israeli police who said he had tried to murder Yehuda Glick.
In his letter, Abbas expressed his “anger and condemnation after news of the criminal, despicable assassination by the Israeli occupation army’s terrorist gangs of Muataz Ibrahim Khalil Hijazi, who died a martyr defending the rights of our people and the holy places.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a statement released late on Sunday, condemned the Palestinian leader’s remarks.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the letter of condolences to Hijazi’s family showed that Abbas was “a partner of terrorism, terrorists and murderers.”
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, a Cabinet moderate who was Israel’s chief negotiator in abortive US-brokered peace talks with the Palestinians, told public radio that Abbas was “playing with fire.”