Abbas willing to put demands on hold
TEL AVIV: Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will temporarily shelve his longstanding demand for Israel to freeze West Bank settlement construction in order to revive peace talks under the Trump Administration, a top adviser says.
The 82yearold Palestinian Authority president also would tone down his campaign to prosecute Israel for alleged war crimes and to rally condemnation of the Jewish state at the United Nations, said Mohammad Mustafa, Abbas’ senior economic adviser.
‘‘We have not made the settle ments an upfront issue this time,’’ he said this week.
‘‘We think it’s better for all of us right now to focus on giving this new administration a chance to deliver.’’
Mustafa (62) said rampant unemployment and international donors’ failure to provide promised funds were among the forces driving Abbas to the negotiating table.
Another Abbas aide, Mohammad Shtayyeh, said Trump earned Palestinian confidence when he postponed moving the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
‘‘There is a new dynamic,’’ said Shtayyeh, a member of the policymaking Central Committee in Abbas’s Fatah party.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have not held official talks since a ninemonth peace effort brokered by US Secretary of State John Kerry collapsed in 2014.
Throughout former US president Barack Obama’s term, Abbas refused to negotiate unless Netanyahu froze construction in some 120 West Bank settlements where more than 400,000 Israelis live.
Netanyahu agreed to a 10month West Bank freeze in 2009 but it largely failed to get talks off the ground, and building later resumed.
Netanyahu says he is willing to resume negotiations with Abbas ‘‘anytime and anywhere’’, and says Israelis are willing to make ‘‘painful sacrifices’’ for peace. — Bloomberg News/TNS