Palestinian President Abbas
suspends relations with the US, Israel
By France 24
February 01, 2020
"Information
Clearing House" -
The Palestinian
Authority has cut all ties with the United States
and Israel, including those relating to security,
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on
Saturday.
Abbas was in Cairo to address the
Arab League, which backed the Palestinians in their
opposition to Trump’s plan.
The blueprint, endorsed by Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, calls for the creation of a
demilitarised Palestinian state that excludes Jewish
settlements built in occupied territory and is under
near-total Israeli security control.
“We’ve informed the Israeli side ... that there will
be no relations at all with them and the United
States including security ties,” Abbas told the
one-day emergency meeting, called to discuss Trump’s
plan.
Israel and the Palestinian Authority’s security
forces have long cooperated in policing areas of the
occupied West Bank that are under Palestinian
control. The PA also has intelligence cooperation
agreements with the CIA, which continued even after
the Palestinians began boycotting the Trump
administration’s peace efforts in 2017.
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Abbas also said he had refused to discuss the
plan with Trump by phone, or to receive even a copy
of it to study.
“Trump asked that I speak to him by phone but I
said ‘no’, and that he wants to send me a letter ...
but I refused it.”
Abbas said he did not want Trump to be able to
say that he, Abbas, had been consulted.
He reiterated his “complete” rejection of the
Trump plan, presented on Tuesday.
The Arab League foreign ministers meeting in
Cairo said the plan would not lead to a
comprehensive and just peace, and that the League
would not cooperate with the United States in
implementing it.
The ministers affirmed Palestinian rights to
create a future state based on the land captured and
occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, with
East Jerusalem as capital, the final communique
said.
Foreign ministers from Egypt, Saudi Arabia,
Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon, among others, said there
could be no peace without recognising Palestinian
rights and a comprehensive solution.
After Trump unveiled his plan, some Arab powers
had appeared, despite historic support for the
Palestinians, to prioritise close ties with the
United States and a shared hostility towards Iran
over traditional Arab alliances.
Three Gulf Arab states - Oman, Bahrain and the
United Arab Emirates - attended the White House
gathering where Trump announced his plan alongside
Netanyahu.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu said he would ask his
cabinet this week to approve the application of
Israeli law to Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Such a move could be a first step towards formal
annexation of the settlements and the Jordan Valley
- territory Israel has kept under military
occupation since its capture in 1967.
Most countries consider Israeli settlements on
land captured in war to be a violation of
international law. Trump has changed U.S. policy to
withdraw such objections.
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