PLO ditches Trump, undermines future UN and EU support

PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s extraordinary two-hour-long anti-American and Jew-hating diatribe delivered on January 14 must inevitably see:

• Israel refusing to resume negotiations with the PLO 
• Another Arab partner replacing the PLO to negotiate with Israel in implementing President Trump’s eagerly-awaited ultimate deal.

The viciousness and vindictiveness of Abbas’s attack on the internationally-recognised legal right of the Jewish people to its own independent State – as endorsed by:

• the United Nations (“UN”)  1947 Partition Plan
• the European Union (“EU”)  1980 Venice Declaration
• UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338
• The 1993 Oslo Accords
• President Bush’s 2003 Road Map - supported by both the UN and the EU

requires the UN and EU to unequivocally reject Abbas’s racist, false and misleading claims.

Abbas’s speech was delivered at what has been described as “a Palestinian Central Council meeting in Ramallah”.

In fact it was a very well stage-managed event involving the attendance of some 80 of the 132 Councillors and about 500 other persons. One vacant seat was reserved for the “Republic of Lithuania”. Diplomats from other countries were undoubtedly present.

The backdrop included two huge screens each containing five maps of Palestine from 1947 onwards – conveniently excluding 78% of Palestine - today called Jordan - granted independence by Great Britain in 1946.

President Trump has already reacted to Abbas’s following inflammatory remarks by withholding US$65 million to UNRWA::

1. Let them [the US] not do us a favor by paying us money... We do not want anyone to pay us.”
2. We will not accept the deals the US wants to impose on us. We will not accept its mediation after the crime it committed against Jerusalem.”
3. There are two names that I don’t want to mention, but my conscience is bothering me, so I have to mention them. American Ambassador David Friedman... He says: "There is no occupation, who said there’s an occupation? Israel is building on its lands." ... The second name, their Ambassador to the UN Ms. Haley… who said: 'I wear high heels not for fashion, only to hit whoever attacks Israel.' I say to her – and may she hear me – [our] response is going to be worse, but not by way of high heels.”
4. The Americans are always telling us that we must stop paying salaries to the families of the martyrs and the prisoners. We categorically reject this demand.”

Further retaliatory action by Trump seems certain.

Interestingly Abbas also claimed: