West Bank – Ahead of UN Speech, Palestinian Leader Eschews Direct Talks

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    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas chairs a Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committee meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah, August 22, 2015. REUTERS/Majdi Mohammed/PoolWest Bank – In a harshly worded essay ahead of his Wednesday address to the United Nations, the Palestinian president says a new “multilateral” approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is needed since direct negotiations with Israel have repeatedly failed.

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    Mahmoud Abbas says the model should be based instead on the type of negotiations that took place in the Balkans, Libya and Iran. Several rounds of past negotiations have been unable to reach a peace accord and Abbas shunned renewing them.

    “The peace process must be multilateral. The same pattern of negotiations imposed for years will not work because Israel is the occupying power,” he wrote in an op-ed in The Huffington Post. “We cannot directly negotiate with a power that has this level of control and exhibits such contempt for the rights and existence of our people.”

    While Abbas’ Palestinian Authority rules over most of the West Bank Palestinian population, Israel still controls much of the territory. Israel accuses Abbas and his predecessor Yasser Arafat of rejecting far-reaching Israeli peace proposals and inciting further violence.

    In his op-ed, Abbas claimed it was Israel that has negotiated in bad faith and accused it of “blatant ethnic cleansing.”

    There was no immediate comment from Israel.

    The column could give a hint about what Abbas plans to say before the U.N.’s General Assembly. He has threatened to drop a “bombshell” in the speech later Wednesday – prompting speculation he will sever ties with Israel over its settlement expansion and other hard-line policies.

    But the tough talk could also be an attempt to mask his weakness. Hopes of setting up a Palestinian state have been derailed, and there are calls for the 80-year-old Abbas to resign and dissolve the Palestinian Authority.


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    3 Comments
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    8 years ago

    This Jew hater is afraid that Russia is going to now get involved in the entire Middle East, so he suddenly wants to talk.
    He hates us all. He is the malach hamoves.

    8 years ago

    The dog has barked. However, it would be stupid for Israel to throw him a bone. It has already done this many times, only to get bitten. It is becoming clearer every day that Abbas doesn’t matter. As for the Palis, they don’t either. They have never demonstrated the ability to self govern. They are a violent, uncivilized, murderous tribe. The words they use are simply PC ones that sound nice. However, there is zero humanity or morality behind them. You cannot negotiate with them, and is because they are unable to engage in anything besides how to take and crush. The world needs to recognize this.

    His “multilateral” baloney is directed at Obama, who used this tactic to pull off the cursed Iran deal. He thinks it can be repeated. One idiot counting on the other. How low the world has sunk.