Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Tuesday urged the UN Security Council to reject President Donald Trump’s Middle East plan, saying it would splinter Palestinian lands and never bring lasting peace.
Brandishing a large map of a future Palestine as laid out by Trump, Abbas denounced it as a “Swiss cheese” deal that would give the Palestinians only a “fragmented state” without control of their airspace, territorial waters or East Jerusalem.
“Who among you would accept such a state?” Abbas asked, as he warned that Israel would create an “apartheid” situation if it moves ahead
with annexation.
“I would like to say to Mr Donald Trump that his plan cannot achieve peace and security as it cancels international legitimacy,” Abbas said. “If you impose peace it will not last, it cannot last.”
The Palestinians have sought to rally international support against the plan, which Trump unveiled alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on January 28.
But in a setback, the Palestinians dropped plans for a vote on a resolution Tuesday that would denounce the proposal.
Diplomats said that the United States has put heavy pressure, including threats of financial repercussions, on Security Council members and that even some European nations were hesitant.
A senior US official hailed the development, saying, “By not putting forward a polarizing resolution, the United Nations Security Council demonstrated that the old way of doing things is over.”
The veteran 84-year-old leader, long considered a moderate among the Palestinians, rejected the use of violence but said that street protests showed the deep opposition to Israeli occupation.
“Our entire people is saying ‘No, no’ to this deal,” he said.
Abbas won a show of support as he met in New York with Netanyahu’s predecessor Ehud Olmert, who said that any negotiations needed to involve the Palestinian leader.
“He is a man of peace, he is opposed to terror, and therefore he is the only partner that we can deal with,” Olmert, a centrist who served as prime minister from 2006 to 2009, told reporters with Abbas at his side.
Whenever negotiations start, “the partner of Israel to these negotiations will be Mahmud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority,” Olmert said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas holds a placard showing maps of (from left to right) historical Palestine, the 1947 United Nations partition plan on Palestine, the 1948-67 borders between the Palestinian territories and Israel, and a current map of the Palestinian territories without Israeli-annexed areas and settlements, as he attends an Arab League emergency meeting discussing the US-brokered proposal for a settlement of the Middle East conflict at the league’s headquarters in the Egyptian capital Cairo on Saturday. Photo: AFP
