President Mahmoud Abbas met six journalists from Israel's top news outlets in his Ramallah office Wednesday.
Two of the reporter,s Aluf Benn and Akiva Eldar, billed the meeting as part of a campaign by Abbas to enlist Israeli public support for a peace settlement based on 1967 borders.
The writers noted in the newspaper that the move came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to meet US President Barack Obama in Washington this week.
The Associated Press reported that PLO negotiations chief Saeb Erekat called the move an attempt to "reach out" to the Israeli public, while Haaretz writers called it a "popular peace campaign."
According to officials at the president's office, Abbas aide Hussein Husein was present at the meeting. The officials confirmed that the initiative was designed to reach out to the Israeli public.
Husein said the move was "nothing new" and that more initiatives like the dinner could be expected in the coming months, adding that the future events would "be more open."
Asked how the president selected the six journalists who attended the meeting, Husein said Abbas knew some of them personally, but declined to elaborate on the selection process.
Describing the event, the Haaretz writers said Abbas answered questions on his thesis work Relations between Zionism and Nazism: 1933 - 1945, his relationship with the United States, and his position on two states.
They noted Abbas' expression of regret over the Palestinian rejection of the UN’s 1947 Partition Plan, and his urging of Israelis not to similarly reject the Arab League Initiative for a two-state solution.
Five of the six writers present, according to a report from the Hebrew-language daily Ma'ariv, were Amit Cohen (Ma'ariv), Rony Shaked and Smadar Peri (Yedioth Ahronoth), and Aluf Benn and Akiva Eldar (Haaretz).
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