Roadmap’s Roadblock
Abbas’s anti-Trump gamble is a disaster for Palestinians
MAHMOUD Abbas, the aging president of the not-quitestate of Palestine, aims to lead a worldwide antiTrump resistance movement — at least that’s the takeaway from his defiant address to the UN General Assembly on Thursday.
There’s the obvious retort: Get in line, buddy. More seriously, how does Abbas’s renewed anti-US bravado help the Palestinian cause, not to mention Mideast peace?
On Wednesday, at the margins of the annual UN gabfest, Abbas invited representatives from dozens of countries to his Midtown hotel to talk peace. He pointedly avoided inviting America — or Israel. This was all about everyone else.
Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking for decades has been steered by America, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, known as the Quartet. In reality, however, talks between Ramallah and Jerusalem were mostly chaperoned by Washington.
In his General Assembly speech Thursday, Abbas made clear this will no longer do. “Any country can join the Quartet,” he said (ignoring basic arithmetic laws). Everyone must pitch in for peace, he said, “But the United States alone? No, because they are biased toward Israel.”
An American peace plan? Abbas implied he’d only start listening once Trump rescinds recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, reverses his decision to deny funds to a UN agency solely dedicated to maintain Palestinians as refugees for perpetuity and reopens the Palestinian embassy in Washington.
Aides say Abbas declined to change his US-assailing speech even after Trump, for the first time, said Wednesday his preferred outcome is a two-state solution — which, since Israel already exists, means the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Speaking to reporters after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayahu, Trump also indicated he’d renew aid to Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, which was cut earlier. Aid “will start up again,” Trump said, adding, “I look forward to it, because they use it for some purposes that are good.”
So this week, at least, Trump’s softening his administration’s reputation for extreme pro-Israel bias, perhaps hoping to draw Abbas to the negotiating table.
Why? After meeting allied Arab leaders, Trump said in his rambling press conference Wednesday, “I started to realize that peace between Israel and the Palestinians for the Middle East is a very important thing.”
Saudis, Emiratis, Jordanians, Qataris, Egyptians and others quietly, and increasingly, have increased their cooperation with Israel. And they’d prefer to have some semblance of a peace process going to justify those ties to their people.
But not Abbas — he’s had it with Trump. And Congress, too, he said, for calling Palestinians terrorists.
Abbas closed his speech saying he wanted to “pay tribute to all our martyrs.” Well, he literally pays them, and their families, hefty salaries for killing Israeli civilians, so Congress rightly denies US funds dedicated to such causes.
But above all, Abbas is a man of the past. Educated by Soviets in Moscow, he’s a product of the Cold War, when the Palestinian cause gained steam with the aid of spectacular terrorist acts and antiWestern rhetoric. Abbas’ current return to America-bashing comes at a time when the world — including the Arab world — is moving on.
Netanyahu, who also addressed the UN Thursday, dedicated most of his speech to revealing Israeligathered intelligence, exposing a secret Iranian nuclear facility at Tehran’s Maher Alley in the Turquzabaf district and showing Hezbollah missile sites at the heart of Beirut.
“Israel knows what you’re doing and where you’re doing it,” he said, indicating Israel would go after such threats in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. The Palestinians? They’re further down the list.
Meanwhile the 83-year-old Abbas, who is yet to designate a successor 13 years after elected for a four-year stint, undermines the Palestinian cause by turning his back on any peace plan America would propose, no matter who’s president.
And if by some miracle he does agree, a successor may well reverse his decision. Either way, no Israeli-Palestinian plan can work unless America steers and guarantees it — every step of the way, including implementation.
So yes, President Trump, publish your Israeli-Palestinian “real-estate deal.” As long as Ramallah’s leadership succession remains unresolved, don’t expect peace. But the plan will hopefully help Arabs come out of the Israel-ties closet.
Abbas, with his eternal “no” and current clumsy attempt to marginalize America, won’t be history’s first roaring mouse. Nor will he be the first leader history has forgotten.