On Thursday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held a rare video conference with rival Palestinian groups in Ramallah and Beirut. This was in pursuance of his bid to call for a comprehensive and unified national dialogue against the United Arab Emirates (UAE)-Israel deal and to endorse the idea of “one people and one political system”.
Abbas’ call with the Islamist militant Hamas and the secular Fatah group of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) came as a surprise as the two factions have engaged in years of in-fighting. The conference comes at a time when countries in the Arab Gulf have been warming ties with Israel after Tel Aviv pledged to unilaterally annex occupied West Bank territory earlier this year. Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA) vehemently rejected the UAE-Israel deal and also the role of Washington as a mediator in Israeli negotiations. Previously, Abbas had called for a United Nations (UN) supervised peace conference based on the tenets of the Arab peace initiative.
During the call with the heads of the groups in Beirut and Ramallah, Abbas announced, “From now on, no one is authorised to speak on our behalf. We only speak for our cause”. Ismail Haniya, Hamas political chief, said that the American Middle East plan was designed to form a regional coalition that would easily allow Israel to ‘penetrate’ into the Arab world under the garb of normalisation. “We are going through a period that contains unprecedented risks and strategic threats to our Palestinian cause and to the region,” he said, “At this stage, failure is forbidden.” Haniya also called for the establishment of a joint Palestinian political programme aimed at ending the agreements under the Oslo Accords in order to regain Palestinian unity.
Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner had visited Abu Dhabi to cement the accord and Washington’s support for it. During his visit, Kushner, a key player in the drafting of the controversial US-Israel peace agreement, said that the Palestinians should accept the agreement and reignite negotiations with Israeli officials, insinuating that they stop being “stuck in the past.” While both Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have tacitly supported the UAE-Israel normalisation deal by opening up their airspace for commercial use by Israel, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim Hamam al-Thani told Kushner during the latter’s visit to Doha on Wednesday that his country will only support a two-state solution to end the conflict, with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian state capital.
On Monday, Hamas had announced its latest deal with Israel to de-escalate tensions at the Gaza Strip and put an end to cross-border firing in the region. The deal was negotiated by Qatari envoy Mohammed el-Emadi. Following the dialogue, the office of Yahya Sinwar, a Hamas leader, said, “An understanding was reached to rein in the latest escalation and end [Israeli] aggression against our people.”
Rival Palestinian Factions Hold Rare Meeting to Show United Front Against Israel-UAE Deal
Palestine has vehemently rejected the normalization deal and has previously deemed it as treacherous and violative of its interests
September 4, 2020
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas attends the virtual meeting. SOURCE: REUTERS