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Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas on Monday called for calm, saying Israel was “benefiting” from Palestinian violence, and has ordered Palestinian Authority security forces to arrest rioters and prevent the outbreak of violence in PA villages. The reason, he told members of his cabinet, had nothing to do with cooperating with Israel, but to prevent Israel from “taking advantage of violence to attack innocent Palestinians and to drag the entire region into violence.” A PA cabinet official told Arab media that while it was understandable that Palestinians would want to attack Israelis “because of their crimes, we must remember that...

Demonstrating a new level of tension with Israel, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority declared Wednesday that it was no longer bound by the Oslo Peace Accords and subsequent agreements that formed the basis for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In his annual General Assembly speech, Mr. Abbas accused Israel of having violated these pacts, which date back two decades and outline security, economic and other arrangements in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel during and after the 1967 war. He asserted that there was no reason that the Palestinians should remain faithful to them as long...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas made good on his threat to drop a bombshell on the United Nations General Assembly today when he announced that he will stop abiding by the Oslo Accords. The Accords have been the basis for relations between his group and Israel for over the last 20 years. Abbas claims that they are going to ignore the Accords because he claims Israel is already ignoring them. “As long as Israel refuses to commit to the agreements signed with us, which render us an authority without real powers, and as long as Israel refuses to cease settlement...

Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas has announced that the PA is no longer committed to the 1994 Oslo Accords. In his UN General Assembly address Wednesday evening, Abbas wasted no time attacking Israel from the podium in New York. He began by repeating calls for a “two-state solution,” and condemning Israeli “settlements” in Judea and Samaria, as well as the blockade of Gaza. …

US Secretary of State John Kerry has blocked a meeting between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas, senior Palestinian and Israeli officials say. During a meeting with four retired Israeli ambassadors in Paris last Monday, Haaretz reported, Abbas said that despite his willingness to meet with Netanyahu, "a third party who is not Israeli" had recently prevented the meeting. Netanyahu has reportedly been sending Abbas messages for weeks about reviving the long-stalled peace process amid escalating Arab violence and Abbas' threat to suspend key clauses of the Oslo Accords during his visit to the United...

Mahmoud al-Zahar, a member of the Hamas politburo and a senior official in the terrorist organization, threatened violence against the Palestinian Authority (PA) on Friday despite the unity agreement between the two groups sealed last April. Speaking at a massive rally in Gaza's Khan Younis organized by Hamas in support of the Islamist rioters attacking police on the Temple Mount, al-Zahar slammed the PA for not openly conducting attacks against Israel. "If (Hamas's) Al-Qassam Brigades, (Islamic Jihad's) Al-Quds Brigades and the forces of the struggle were to adopt the policies and the leaders and countries around them, they wouldn't be...

Palestinians on Verge of Renouncing Oslo Accords Palestinian breach of legally binding accord puts to rest an agreement that was DOA. September 9, 2015 Ari Lieberman    Reports are emerging that the Palestinian Authority’s unelected “president” Mahmoud Abbas will soon announce the nullification of all past agreements with Israel, including the infamous 1993 Oslo Accords. Abbas will then declare “Palestine” to be a state under “occupation.” The architect of this new approach is none other than Saeb Erekat, a senior figure in Abbas’s inner circle and one of the PA’s primary rejectionist figures. It was Erekat who was the...

The Middle East and North Africa region is in turmoil from Iraq to Yemen and from Syria to Libya, but French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned Sunday of an “explosion” unless the deadlock in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is broken. Speaking in Ramallah, he said both Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah had expressed that view to him during talks with them over the weekend. Fabius was speaking after meeting with Palestinian Authority (P.A.) chairman Mahmoud Abbas during an intensive regional trip designed to push a French initiative to secure a U.N. Security Council resolution laying out the basis...

Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday told visiting French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius that any new Palestinian unity government should not include Hamas, AFP reports. The remarks came on the eve of a key meeting of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to discuss forming a new cabinet. The unity government between Hamas and Fatah collapsed last week as Abbas decided to dissolve it amid a deepening rift between the sides. "(Abbas) told me this government of national unity could only include women and men who recognize Israel, renounce violence and who are in agreement...

While Israeli politicians continue to debate the merits of the “two-state solution,” their Palestinian interlocutors have long moved beyond that model for the solution of the Middle East conflict. For Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the idea of a “greater Palestine”—that would stretch from “the river to the sea”—is now an official policy. If this policy had until now been elucidated verbally in Arabic, by “minor” government officials—allowing the PA to say that they had been speaking out of turn or voicing personal opinions—it has now taken on a much more official persona. In a series of videos and images...

As leaders of state, including the Vatican, recognize the illegitimate claim of Palestinian statehood, there can be no peace as that claim is based wholly on the outright destruction of Israel, the Jews, and the subjugation of Christianity Abandoning his own constituents, Pope Francis has embraced the divisive, terror-backed Palestinian Authority with a treaty recognizing its (nonexistent) statehood and an open-armed welcome of Mahmoud Abbas, P.A. leader, as an “angel of peace.” With this action, the pope iced the cake of tumultuous Middle East politics by celebrating a condoner of ISIS that continues to persecute members of his own Catholic...

Messaging the Vatican: IF Ellen Carmichael, writing for the National Review, is right about the Pope never having declared Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas “an angel of peace”, is correct; that the context of the pontiff’s words is quite different when one reads the English version of what he really said, then the Vatican needs to bone up on communication. In a world where lies and propaganda masquerade freely as truth, communication is everything. “It’s astonishing that international news sources have continued to print false information, even after the pope’s remarks were made available in English. (National Review, May 17,...

Sunday morning, Americans awakened to headlines proclaiming that Pope Francis had called Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas “an angel of peace” during an event at the Vatican the day before. News organizations gleefully printed this claim across newspapers and news sites around the globe. Agence France-Presse’s headline: “Pope meets ‘angel of peace’ Abbas after treaty announcement.” BBC: “Pope Francis calls Palestinians’ Abbas ‘angel of peace.’” The New York Times: “In Vatican, Abbas Is Praised as ‘Angel of Peace.’” Even Jonathan S. Tobin of Commentary magazine published a piece entitled, “Sorry, Your Holiness, But Abbas Is No Angel.” Of course,...

Another day, another misquote.I hate to get into a public disagreement with a colleague here, but the outrage du jour seems to be based on a translation that may or may not be deliberately wrong. As the BBC and the Associated Press are at the root of it, I’m leaning towards the former. A BBC reporter in the room claimed that Pope Francis said “you are an angel of peace” while presenting a gift (which is Vatican tradition) to Abbas.The Vatican reporter for the Italian newspaper La Stampa has it differently: As is tradition with heads of State or...

Pope Francis met Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Saturday, calling him “an angel of peace,” days after the Vatican said it was preparing to sign its first accord with Palestine to the anger of Israel. Abbas met the pontiff for about 20 minutes for a private audience, a meeting that comes a day before the pope is due to canonise two Palestinian nuns, who will become the first Palestinian Arabs to gain sainthood.

<p>VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican officially recognized the state of Palestine in a new treaty finalized Wednesday, immediately sparking Israeli ire and accusations that the move hurt peace prospects.</p> <p>The treaty, which concerns the activities of the Catholic Church in Palestinian territory, makes clear that the Holy See has switched its diplomatic recognition from the Palestine Liberation Organization to the state of Palestine.</p>

The Vatican has officially recognized the state of Palestine in a new treaty. The treaty, which was finalized Wednesday but still has to be signed, makes clear that the Holy See has switched its diplomatic relations from the Palestinian Liberation Organization to the state of Palestine.

The Vatican has officially recognized the state of Palestine in a new treaty. The treaty, which was finalized Wednesday but still has to be signed, makes clear that the Holy See has switched its diplomatic relations from the Palestinian Liberation Organization to the state of Palestine. The Vatican had welcomed the decision by the U.N. General Assembly in 2012 to recognize a Palestinian state. But the treaty is the first legal document negotiated between the Holy See and the Palestinian state and constitutes an official recognition. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is due to see Pope Francis on Saturday before the...

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Moscow on Monday where the issue of Middle East peace talks will be raised, Russian authorities announced Thursday. “The two leaders will hold talks concerning key aspects of Russian-Palestinian relations and their future, with particular attention on the trade, economy and humanitarian sectors,” the Kremlin said in a statement according to AFP. There will also be “an exchange of ideas on the process of Israeli-Palestinian talks and other problematic regional situations,” the statement continued, adding that North Africa would also be on the agenda. …

The PA officially announced Wednesday night that it was hoping to renew talks with Israel, regardless of who was Prime Minister. After earlier reports said that the Palestinian Authority was considering suspending all security cooperation with Israel in the wake of Binyamin Netanyahu's reelection, the PA officially announced Wednesday night that it was hoping to renew talks with Israel, regardless of who was Prime Minister. Nabil Abu-Rudeineh, the PA's official spokesperson, said that the PA has “no interest in the disposition of Israel's Prime Minister. The only thing we are interested in from any Israeli government is the recognition and...