Abbas cuts links with Israel and Washington

CAIRO－The Palestinian Authority has cut all ties with the United States and Israel, including those relating to security, after rejecting a Middle East peace plan presented by US President Donald Trump, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday.

Abbas was in Cairo to address the Arab League, which backed the Palestinians in their opposition to Trump's plan.

The blueprint, endorsed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calls for the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state that excludes Jewish settlements built in occupied territory and is under near-total Israeli security control.

"We've informed the Israeli side...that there will be no relations at all with them and the United States including security ties," Abbas told an emergency meeting in Cairo.

The Cairo meeting brought together senior Arab officials, including Saudi Arabia's foreign minister and the United Arab Emirates' minister of state for foreign affairs.

Israel and the Palestinian Authority's security forces have long cooperated in policing areas of the occupied West Bank that are under Palestinian control. The PA also has intelligence cooperation agreements with the US Central Intelligence Agency, which continued even after the Palestinians began boycotting the Trump administration's peace efforts in 2017.

Abbas said his authority sent two letters to both Netanyahu and the CIA to convey the Palestinian rejection of the deal.

"The US deal is completely rejected once they announced annexing Jerusalem to Israel," Abbas told the Arab foreign ministers in the meeting.

The Palestinian president said that the United States is a biased mediator, saying that he will head to the United Nations Security Council to protest the deal and find a solution.

Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the US plan was tantamount to creating "a one state with two categories of people, meaning an apartheid system, as it makes Palestinians second class citizens".

"It is our right to accept or reject (the plan) … though the American proposal in reality appeared to be a dictation, or an offer that cannot be rejected or even discussed," he added.

The Arab League rejected Trump's plan, saying in a statement it failed to meet "the minimum rights and aspirations of Palestinian people".

The ministers affirmed Palestinian rights to create a future state based on the land captured and occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, with East Jerusalem as capital, the final communique said.

Foreign ministers from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, among others, said there could be no peace without recognizing Palestinian rights and a comprehensive solution.

After Trump unveiled his plan, some Arab powers had appeared, despite historic support for the Palestinians, to prioritize close ties with the US and a shared hostility towards Iran over traditional Arab alliances.

Three Gulf Arab states－Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates－attended the White House gathering where Trump announced his plan alongside Netanyahu.

AFP - REUTERS - XINHUA