Abbas's farewell to Israel's Peres stirs controversy at home

[oberliner]

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is feeling a backlash at home over his attendance at the funeral of Israeli statesman Shimon Peres, who shared a Nobel prize for interim peace deals with the Palestinians.

In Arabic postings on social media, critics of the Western-backed Abbas have focused on a view of Peres's legacy that jars with his world acclaim as an architect of the landmark Oslo accords in the 1990s.

Peres, a former prime minister and president, died on Wednesday at the age of 93. He was buried in a state ceremony in Jerusalem on Friday attended by U.S. President Barack Obama and dozens of dignitaries from around the world.

But the president of Egypt and king of Jordan, leaders of the only Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with Israel, stayed away, while Abbas's main political rival, the Hamas Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, condemned his participation as having betrayed Palestinian principles.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-palestinians-israel-abbas-idUSKCN1231CG?il=0