Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader on Saturday, February 1, 2020, announced a cut in all ties with Israel and the United States, including security cooperation.
He said the peace plan unveiled by US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, January 28, 2020, was in “violation of the (autonomy) accords” launched in Oslo in 1993 by Israel and the Palestinians.
Israel will have to “bear responsibility as an occupying power” for the Palestinian territories, he told an emergency Arab League meeting in Cairo.
The summit of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo was requested by the Palestinians, who responded angrily to the American proposal.
The Arab League on Saturday, February 1, 2020, rejected Trump’s controversial Middle East plan, calling it “unfair” to Palestinians.
The pan-Arab bloc said in a statement that it “rejects the US-Israeli ‘deal of the century’ considering that it does not meet the minimum rights and aspirations of Palestinian people.”
Arab leaders also vowed “not to … cooperate with the US administration to implement this plan.”
Abbas said that he told Israel and the US that “there will be no relations with them, including the security ties” following the deal that Palestinians say heavily favours Israel.
There was no immediate comment from US or Israeli officials.
The Palestinian leader said that he’d refused to take US President Donald Trump’s phone calls and messages “because I know that he would use that to say he consulted us.” “I will never accept this solution,” Abbas said.
“I will not have it recorded in my history that I have sold Jerusalem.” He said the Palestinians remain committed to ending the Israeli occupation and establishing a state with its capital in east Jerusalem.
Abbas said that the Palestinians wouldn’t accept the US as a sole mediator in any negotiations with Israel.
He said they would go to the United Nations Security Council and other world and regional organisations to “explain our position.” the Arab league’s head, Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, said the proposal revealed a “sharp turn” in the long-standing US foreign policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“This turn does not help achieve peace and a just solution,” he declared.
Aboul-Gheit said that the Palestinians reject the proposal.
He called for the two sides, the Israelis and the Palestinians, to negotiate to reach a “satisfactory solution for both of them.” President Trump unveiled the long-awaited proposal on Tuesday in Washington. It would allow Israel to annex all its West Bank settlements – which the Palestinians and most of the international community view as illegal – as well as the Jordan Valley, which accounts for roughly a fourth of the West Bank.
In return, the Palestinians would be granted statehood in Gaza, scattered chunks of the West Bank and some neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Jerusalem, all linked together by a new network of roads, bridges and tunnels.
Israel would control the state’s borders and airspace and maintain overall security authority. Critics of the plan say this would rob Palestinian statehood of any meaning.
The plan would abolish the right of return for Palestinian refugees displaced by the 1948 war and their descendants, a key Palestinian demand.
