In his rant at the UN, as part of that disreputable body’s observance of “Nakba Day,” Mahmoud Abbas lit into the Jewish state. Khaled Abu Toameh details his anger with both Israel and the United States, here: “Mahmoud Abbas scores symbolic victories at UN, Arab League,” by Khaled Abu Toameh, Jerusalem Post, May 26, 2023:
Abbas is angry with the Israeli government because of its policies and actions toward the Palestinians and disappointed with the US administration for not putting what he sees as sufficient pressure on Israel to succumb to Palestinian demands.
Abbas has never understood that Israel cannot be pressured to succumb to Palestinian demands that would endanger the Jewish state, or that would despoil Israel of territory that is essential to its Jewish identity. No American pressure on Israel will lead it to agree to be squeezed back within the 1949 armistice lines, with a nine-mile waist from Qalqilya to the sea. No American pressure will convince Israel to surrender eastern Jerusalem, including the Old City, with the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, to a future Palestinian state. No American pressure will lead Israel to surrender the Golan Heights.
Israel is now much stronger, economically and militarily, than it was in 1957 when American pressure caused Israel to withdraw from the Sinai. In fact, Israel is now the most important and effective American military ally between Western Europe and Australia. Its military advances, such as the Iron Dome anti-missile system, its drone technology, and it cyber warfare capabilities, have been readily shared with the Pentagon. It’s not at all clear that there is any longer much the American government can do to pressure Israel, assuming it wanted to. And the Israelis are well aware of that, as they prepare to take on Iran, without the participation, or more significantly, the approval, of the Americans.
He [Abbas] is further dismayed by the US administration’s failure to fulfill the promises it made to the Palestinians, including reopening the US Consulate in Jerusalem and the PLO diplomatic mission in Washington, both of which were closed by the administration of former president Donald Trump.
Abbas does not understand that Biden’s campaign promise to reopen the American “consulate to the Palestinians”in Jerusalem was based on his ignorance of the relevant international law. According to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, no consulate can be opened in a state without that receiving state’s permission. There is no possibility that Israel will approve a reopening of that consulate. Someone – Blinken? Sullivan? — must have taken Biden aside and explained all that to him, for ever since he was elected he’s stopped mentioning his earlier intent to “reopen the consulate in Jerusalem.”
Echoing Abbas’s resentment, some Palestinian officials in Ramallah have begun publicly criticizing the US administration for its alleged “bias” in favor of Israel. In their statements, the officials continue to condemn Israel’s counterterrorism operations in the West Bank and Israeli measures in Jerusalem, while at the same time holding the US administration fully responsible because of its “silence” toward the “crimes” perpetrated against the Palestinians.
What American “bias” in favor of Israel is that? Hasn’t the Biden administration been corrosively critical of Netanyahu’s judicial reform plans? Hasn’t Biden refused to invite Netanyahu to meet with him in Washington as a petulant sign of his displeasure? Haven’t the Bidenites denounced the planned expansion of West Bank settlements? Haven’t the Bidenites renewed hundreds of millions of dollars in annual aid to the PA, even though this has meant violating the Taylor Force Act? It is Israel, not the Palestinians, that has a right to be dismayed with the Biden administration.
Abbas’s frustration with the US administration has led him to move closer to Russia. At a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in October 2022, Abbas praised Russia’s support for the Palestinians and said he “does not trust the US.”
But in moving closer to Russia, Abbas is siding with the country that the entire Western world is now united against because of its invasion of Ukraine. He wins no points in Washington by embracing Vladimir Putin, and if the Biden administration had ever been willing to use up political capital in opening the PLO office in Washington, you can be certain that after Abbas’ very public outreach to Russia, it is so no longer.
In early May, Abbas met in his office in Ramallah with Russian envoy to the Middle East Vladimir Safronkov and told him that the Palestinians are keen on strengthening their relations with Moscow. In mid-May, Abbas dispatched PLO Secretary-General Hussein al-Sheikh to Moscow for talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his deputy Mikhail Bogdanov. By courting the Russians, Abbas is seeking to pave the way for Moscow to play a larger role in the Middle East at the expense of the US.
In his courting of the Russians, Abbas is distancing himself from the Americans and from the 27-member EU, who are all firmly aligned with the Ukraine against Russia. Furthermore, the rich Arab states of the Gulf, as well as Egypt and Jordan, remain hostile to Moscow, and do not approve of Abbas’ cozying up to Vladimir Putin. Abbas wants Moscow to play a bigger role in the Middle East but apparently has not noticed that lately the Russians have been drawing down their forces in the one place in the region where the Russians have military forces – Syria. Moscow now needs those troops and weapons for use against the Ukrainians.
At the Arab League Summit in Jeddah, Abbas also seemed determined to challenge both Israel and the US administration by announcing his intention to pursue unilateral moves, which he described as “a diplomatic and legal effort at international forums and courts to restore the rights of our people.” He also vowed to continue working toward gaining full membership for the Palestinians in the UN….
Abbas grossly overestimates the power of the PA on the world stage. It is most unlikely that the Palestinians will gain full membership in the UN because a vote in the General Assembly on membership can only be taken after a recommendation by the Security Council, and as long as America is prepared to exercise its veto, that recommendation will not be forthcoming. As for Abbas hoping to use the International Court of Justice against Israel, that body has no power to enforce its rulings. Furthermore, Israel is not a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and thus not subject to its jurisdiction. Abbas needs to think again about his plans, as he put it, to engage in a “diplomatic and legal effort at international forums and courts to restore the rights of our people.”
Khaled Abu Toameh states:
The Palestinians have not hidden their fear that Saudi Arabia will sign a peace treaty with Israel, a move that could put them on a collision course with the influential kingdom. In meetings with bin Salman and other Saudi officials, Abbas and some Palestinian representatives are reported to have voiced concern that a peace deal between the Saudis and Israel would be seen as a “reward” to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and a big achievement for the US administration.
Nonetheless, some officials in Ramallah say they are still worried that the Saudis will surprise everyone by striking a deal with Israel, just as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain did three years ago.
“We have no assurances it won’t happen,” said one official. “It seems there are many things happening behind the scenes. It would be a disaster for the Palestinians if we lose Saudi Arabia.”
The Saudis pledged in Jeddah to adhere to the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, but the Palestinians are right to worry that the Crown Prince may decide he has more to gain by normalizing ties with Israel and joining the Abraham Accords than by pushing a plan he knows the Israelis will never accept. He may calculate that joining those Accords and normalizing ties with Israel will help him obtain what he wants from Washington. To wit: he wants American security guarantees, reliable and expeditious access to American weapons, and U.S. cooperation in helping build a civilian nuclear program for the Kingdom, including Saudi enrichment of uranium. And despite the apparent recent rapprochement with Iran, the Crown Prince still must worry about both the Houthi threat in Yemen that has not yet disappeared, and the restive Shi’a population, several million strong, in the Eastern Province of the Kingdom, where all of the country’s oil is located. Israel continues to be of value to the Saudis, sharing intelligence on Iran and its proxies with Riyadh and, of course, the Jewish state remains the only power that can be counted on to prevent the Iranians from obtaining nuclear weapons.
To some, the events at the UN and the Arab summit in Jeddah may seem of little consequence….
I am one of those who thinks both the Nakba Day at the UN and the boilerplate expressions of support for the Palestinians at the Arab summit are indeed “of little consequence.” The countries that counted, forty-five of them, boycotted Abbas’ rant at the General Assembly. He managed to offend Palestinians by comparing them to animals that “needed protection.” And in Jeddah, the Arab expressions of support for the Palestinians were the usual pro-forma affairs. The three Arab countries that have joined the Abraham Accords (for now, the fourth country, Sudan, is only nominally a member), the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco, did not offer to put any pressure on their new ally in Jerusalem. None of the rich Arab states of the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia, has offered to renew any of the aid that the Palestinians used to receive but that has now been entirely cut. With only these “symbolic victories” — his Nakba Day speech at the UN, and the Arab summit at Jeddah, where only words of support, unaccompanied by any concrete offers of aid, were offered — being all that Mahmoud Abbas has achieved, he may finally be toppled by the hard men of Hamas, waiting in the wings.