Palestinians: We Cannot Accept Anything from Trump

by Khaled Abu Toameh

• According to the reports, the White House "peace team," led by senior adviser Jared Kushner and special envoy Jason Greenblatt, has been working on the plan for two years -- and President Trump wants it published between December 2018 and February 2019.
• Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his representatives in Ramallah have radicalized their people against the Israeli government to a point where meeting or doing business with any Israeli official is tantamount to treason. This is why Abbas does not and cannot return to the negotiating table with Israel and also why Abbas cannot change his position toward the Trump administration.
• Wasel Abu Yousef, a senior Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official, said this week that the Palestinians were moving on three levels to thwart Trump's upcoming plan: rallying worldwide support for the Palestinian position against the plan, uniting all Palestinians, and opposing attempts to normalize relations between the Arab countries and Israel.

In a recent speech demonstrating the degree of anti-US sentiments, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called the Trump administration "liars" and boasted that the Palestinians were the first to stand against and combat President Trump's "deal of the century." Pictured: Abbas delivers a speech at the United Nations on September 27, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

Hardly a day passes without the leadership of the Palestinian Authority (PA) affirming its strong opposition to US President Donald Trump's yet-to-be-announced Middle East peace plan, also referred to as the "deal of the century." Palestinian leaders have convinced their people that Trump is the worst person on the face of the earth and that no one should be doing business with him.

The Palestinian Authority is not the only Palestinian party that continues to voice its opposition to the upcoming peace plan. No Palestinian group or individual has come out in favor the plan, although no one in the Middle East seems to have seen it or knows anything about its details. Trump has united the Palestinians in a way that no Palestinian or Arab has been able to do since the beginning of the Hamas-Fatah war 11 years ago.

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