Palestinians facing immense pressure to resume peace talks with Israel
In May, Abbas announced that the Palestinians consider all agreements and understandings with Israel and the US, including security cooperation, null and void.
By KHALED ABU TOAMEHPresident Mahmoud Abbas gestures during a meeting with the Palestinian leadership to discuss the United Arab Emirates' deal with Israel to normalize relations, in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank August 18, 2020(photo credit: REUTERS/MOHAMAD TOROKMAN/POOL)
The Palestinian leadership is facing immense pressure from several parties to resume peace negotiations with Israel, Palestinian sources said on Sunday.Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, France, Germany and Britain are some of the countries urging Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to agree to hold direct negotiations with Israel, the sources said, adding that European Union officials were also involved in the effort.The Palestinian leadership is also under pressure to rescind its decision to renounce all signed agreements with Israel and suspend security coordination between the PA security forces and the IDF in the West Bank, the sources added.In May, Abbas announced that the Palestinians consider all agreements and understandings with Israel and the US, including security cooperation, null and void. That announcement came in response to Israel’s now-shelved plan to apply its sovereignty to parts of the West Bank.Abbas has in recent years expressed his readiness to return to the negotiating table but only within the framework of an international peace conference with the participation of the Middle East Quartet of mediators – the US, Russia, the EU, and the United Nations. He and other Palestinian officials said that the US had disqualified itself from playing the role of an honest broker because of President Donald Trump’s “bias” in favor of Israel and “hostility” toward the Palestinians.“The Palestinian leadership is being told that it no longer has an excuse for boycotting the peace process with Israel now that the annexation plan has been suspended,” one source told The Jerusalem Post.“Some Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan have advised the Palestinian leadership to soften its stance toward the peace process, especially in light of the peace agreements between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.”Those three have also advised the Palestinian leadership to halt its criticism of the UAE and Bahrain so as not to aggravate tensions between the Palestinians and the Gulf states.Another source told the Post that Abbas has instructed his senior officials to refrain from attacking Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz’s recent criticism of the Palestinian leadership.In an interview with Saudi Al-Arabiya television station, the prince, an ex-Saudi ambassador to the US, lambasted Palestinian leaders for criticizing the peace deals between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain.“This low level of discourse is not what we expected from officials who seek to gain global support for their cause,” he said. “Their [Palestinian leaders’] transgression against the Gulf states’ leadership with this reprehensible discourse is entirely unacceptable.”According to the source, Western diplomats have warned the Palestinian leadership that failure to resume the peace negotiations with Israel would result in an erosion of international support for the two-state solution.“In the past few days, we saw that France has hinted that the two-state solution may not be the only solution on the table,” the source said, referring to remarks by French Ambassador to Israel, Eric Danon, who was quoted as saying that his country might update its position regarding the two-state solution.Danon reportedly said: “What we prefer and think will be best is a two-state solution. Does that mean we cannot agree on something else? Not at all. We can accept any solution that the Palestinians and Israelis agree on.”As part of the pressure on the Palestinian leadership, Ron Lauder, head of the American Jewish Congress, met in Ramallah on Saturday with Abbas and discussed ways of resuming the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Lauder arrived in Ramallah on a Jordanian helicopter.A PA official said that Abbas told Lauder that the Palestinians won’t return to the negotiating table with Israel on the basis of Trump’s peace plan, known as the Deal of the Century. “President Abbas emphasized that the Palestinians are prepared to resume the peace process with Israel next year only through an international peace conference,” the official explained.The official declined to comment on the claims that Lauder had relayed a message from the Trump administration to Abbas.
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