Posted on 04/01/2019 5:16:02 AM PDT by SJackson
The Palestinian leader spoke in advance of the anticipated roll out of what US President Donald Trump is calling the “Plan of the Century” to resolve the Israeli-Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Trump Administration will allow Israel to annex portions of the West Bank and split the Gaza Strip from the West Bank so that it can be a state of its own, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday.
Speaking at the Arab League summit in Tunisia, "What is coming from the US is more dangerous and serious,” he said. “The US will tell Israel, annex part of the Palestinian lands and grant self-rule to what's left of the land, and give the Gaza Strip a state so that Hamas can play there.
“The US administration's decision is to destroy the Arab Peace Plan and constitutes a dramatic change from the positions of previous US administrations,” Abbas continued.
The Palestinian leader spoke in advance of the anticipated roll out of what US President Donald Trump is calling the “Plan of the Century” to resolve the Israeli-Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
His comments, however, also came one week after the historic decision by Trump to officially recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel annexed from Syria in 1981. Israel captured that territory during the defensive Six-Day War in 1967.
The Arab League on Sunday condemned the US for its recognition of Israeli sovereignty on the Golan and said it planned to seek a UN Security Council resolution against the move.
The US declaration on the Golan has sparked speculation that the Trump administration’s next move would be to support Israel in annexing at least portions of Area C of the West Bank, where all of the Israeli settlements are located.
Former US Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk tweeted on Sunday, “So by recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan, Trump is helping [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] Bibi get re-elected, which will help the right-wing annex the West Bank, which will lead to pressure from his base to recognize that too, which will doom his peace plan and Israel.”
The UN charter, the United Nations Security Council and international law in general has held that territory to be illegal occupied.
In written testimony to Congress last year, legal expert Eugene Kontorovich of the Northwestern University School of Law explained that there were exceptions to that principle. He listed the cases of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam’s sovereignty over north and south Vietnam after an aggressive war and India’s annexation of the Portuguese territory of Goa.
But the UN and its Security Council have made no such exception for Israel. After the Six-Day War, the UNSC passed resolution 242 that affirmed the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” as it related to territory Israel captured in that war. The resolution called for the withdrawal of the IDF “from territories occupied in the recent conflict.”
Israel has since withdrawn from Gaza and the Sinai desert, has annexed eastern Jerusalem and the Golan, and has maintained military control over the West Bank.
The Trump administration’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty on the Golan pushes back at UNSC’s resolution 242 and 497, which deemed Israel’s annexation of the Golan to be illegal. The administration argued that Israeli sovereignty in the Golan was necessary for the country’s security, particularly given Iran’s military presence in Syria.
Just one day later at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference in Washington, US Ambassador to the Israel David Friedman hinted at the link between the Golan Heights security argument to the West Bank. In speaking of the importance of pushing forward with a peace plan, Friedman said, “Can we leave this to an administration that might not understand the existential risk to Israel if Judea and Samaria are overcome by terrorists in the manner that befell the Gaza Strip, after the IDF withdrew from this territory.”
Settler leaders and right-wing politicians in the last four years have pushed forward numerous annexation initiatives, including for the Gush Etzion Region and the Ma’aleh Adumim bloc. But if the argument is security, then Jordan Valley Regional Council head David Elhayani said he believe that the application of sovereignty to his region, situated between Jerusalem and Jordan, would be the logical first step for Israel’s next government.
“and give the Gaza Strip a state so that Hamas can play there.”
It’s far more likely that President Trump will give Israel the green light to exterminate Hamas.
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From the leader who refuses to meet with Israel or the US. It's called reality, like the Golan. Even discussion of peace since Oslo has acknowledged that Israel will keep most areas of Judea and Samaria populated by Jews. Palestinians have agreed on that point three times. Before refusing peace for other reasons. Primarily, peace isn't the objective. Give Gaza to Hamas? Who does Abbas thinks rules Gaza, Martians? He knows it's not under his control. And it will be disconnected, as it is on the map. The connection idea hasn't been mentioned since GWB left office. A once influential man, could have been the father of all palestinian states, now he talks to himself and no one listens. Except some Euros.
Palestinians had their chance and blew it.
Excellent!
When has Israel needed a green light from anyone to exterminate Hamas?
I’ll wait and see. It’s April 1st in Israel, too.
In other words Trump is just recognizing the reality of the situation. The PA had 30 years to do something serious. All they did was line pockets and lose their grip on Gaza. The Israelis were not going to give Golan back to Syria. Trump recognizes some of the settlement blocks will have to be incorporated into Israel, maybe with some land swaps and cash to develop the swapped land.
Gaza will have to work their issues out with Egypt.
UNWRA camp residents in foreign countries need to be integrated in those countries - the Palestinians in the West Bank are never going to want to double the WB population by transplanting 5 generations of people who have lived in Lebanon etc with poor education, lack of marketable skills, and totally unfamiliar with the WB society.
Best solution is for Hamas to lay down their weapons and talk with Egypt about Sinai development to expand the size of Gaza, build a port, export nat gas, create tourism zones on the Mediterranean coast etc ...
Don't you remember SecState Colin Powell's interference when Israel surrounded Arafat?
The “peace process” was tried for decades. Time to look at other approaches. Time to really convince the Palestinians that their choices are to either settle down, or face a future that they REALLY will dislike.
Mahmoud Abbas can be uncommonly perceptive. Trying to maintain the Gaza Strip and the West Bank under one governing system is a fool’s errand anyway. A similar problem came up when the Dominion of India was divided into the Republic of India and the federation that made up the Muslim district, Pakistan, which was originally divided into East and West Pakistan. Eventually East Pakistan was reorganized as Bangladesh, under separate governance altogether. West Pakistan was organized largely on the principle of trying to wrest full control of Kashmir from India, and this remains their primary reason for existence even today, otherwise they are just part of - Afghanistan.
USA was sorely in need of a colectomy.
Give them Gaza but they’d have to get used to hard labor instead of hatching terror plots, protesting and terrorizing Israelis.
This is amusing: “The Trump Administration will allow Israel. . . .”
My guess is that President Trump will ENCOURAGE Israel to do whatever it takes to preserve their country!
I’m all for it. Only a blind man can’t see there was never a possibility of a two state solution when there are clearly three states.
Gaza is in fact Hamas and for Israeli security must be destroyed. There must old fashioned war where lots of people, read gazan’s,must be killed. Although there are no so called innocents, many of them must die to insure Hamas is eradicated.
The peace mongering Europeans and their antiwar rules must be cast on the trash heap of history so there can be effective war.
Keep dragging your feet and refusing to negotiate. Things are being taken off the table one after another and soon there will be nothing left.
April Fool ?????
Too bad Egypt won’t administer Gaza, as part of a demilitarized Sinai.
Go ahead and step the walls out further on the West Bank, to incorporate the Jewish population and improve the defense of the border.
Maybe in the future, the Saudis can absorb some of the Arab population to develop their Neom city of the future.
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