Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas vowed yesterday the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip marked a huge step in his people's quest for an independent state, with a capital in Jerusalem. "Today Gaza and tomorrow Jerusalem if God wills it," Abbas told a demonstration, attended by thousands, on Gaza City's Mediterranean coastline. Today, our march to freedom begins. Tomorrow, it will be Jenin's turn and after that Jerusalem," Abbas told the crowd at the gathering, called "the Festival of Victory and Freedom." The crowd roared back Abbas' popular name: "Abu Mazen, Abu Mazen".| He has a talent for saying precisely the wrong thing, doesn't he? |