Palestinians have right to resist - PM Fayyad

CAIRO, July 30 (Reuters) Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has said Palestinians have a legitimate right to resist Israeli occupation, even if the phrase does not appear in his new government programme.

''We are certainly an occupied people and resistance is a legitimate right for the Palestinian people as an occupied people,'' Fayyad told reporters in Cairo, where he is leading the Palestinian delegation to an Arab League meeting today.

Palestinian officials confirmed on Friday that the platform of the new government omits the phrases ''armed struggle'' and ''resistance'' against Israeli occupation.

This was a change from the platforms of the previous two Palestinian governments led by the Islamist movement Hamas, which has rebuffed US and European demands that it recognise Israel and renounce violence.

But Fayyad suggested that resistance would not always be the same as armed struggle.

He said: ''What is the essence of resistance fundamentally, especially in light of the nature of the existing occupation? ''Does it not begin by exerting every possible effort to ...

reinforce the steadfastness of the Palestinian citizen on his land? This is the programme of the government.'' REUTERS PD KN1643