Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday said that he would only accept a broad, internationally backed panel to broker any peace talks with Israel, but did not rule out a US role in such a panel.
The Palestinians are seething at US President Donald Trump’s recognition last month of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Abbas told a meeting of senior Palestinian officials in a speech that the move had disqualified the US as a peacemaker.
Trump has said that achieving an agreement would be the “deal of the century,” but Abbas was scathing on Sunday, saying: “The deal of the century is actually the slap of the century, and we will return it.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
“We do not accept the United States as a mediator between us and Israel,” Abbas said. “Let it be an international committee formed at an international conference comprising four or five [countries or parties]. But the United States alone? No.”
“We will not accept anything the United States may try to impose on us and we will not accept its mediation following that crime,” said Abbas, referring to Trump’s Jerusalem decision.
Abbas said to Trump: “Yehreb Beitak,” which literally translates as “may your house be demolished.” In colloquial Palestinian Arabic, the phrase can have different connotations, from a harsh to a casual insult, but its use in a widely watched speech seemed jarring.
Abbas also slammed Trump’s recent Twitter comment threatening to cut US aid to the Palestinians.
Abbas’s comments were made at the start of a two-day meeting in Ramallah of the Palestinian Central Council, the Palestinians’ highest decision-making body.
Israeli Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman yesterday criticized Abbas’s speech and said the Palestinian leader has “lost his senses.”
Abbas has given up on the prospect of negotiations and is opting instead for a confrontation with both Israel and the US, he said.
Additional reporting by AP
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