Abbas to plan strategy to fight annexation
PLO, Fatah officials pressure PA president to nix agreements with Israel
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to chair emergency meetings of PLO and Fatah officials in Ramallah in the coming days to discuss Israel’s plan to apply sovereignty to parts of the West Bank.
The meetings will take place as Abbas faces increased pressure from some PLO and Fatah officials to take drastic measures in response to the Israeli plan.
Several officials have urged Abbas to cancel all signed agreements with Israel and halt security coordination between the PA security forces and the IDF.
“President Abbas has called for separate meetings of the PLO Executive Committee and the Fatah Central Committee to discuss [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s US-backed plan to annex Palestinian territories,” said Azzam al-Ahmed, member of the Fatah Central Committee. “These are Palestinian territories, and no one has the right to determine their fate other than our people and leaders.”
The Fatah official said that despite the world’s preoccupation with the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the Palestinian leadership continues to closely monitor Netanyahu’s “attempts to exploit the crisis to annex the Jordan Valley and settlements.”
Ahmed expressed satisfaction with the “positive” responses of several international parties and countries, including the European Union, Russia, China and Japan to the Palestinian stance towards the Israeli plan. He also praised the Arab League foreign ministers who last week strongly condemned the plan, dubbing it a “new war crime.”
PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat warned on Saturday that the annexation plan would “eliminate any possibility of achieving a peace agreement between the Palestinians and Israel. Erekat said he conveyed messages from Abbas to a large number of countries urging them not to allow the Israeli government to proceed with the plan.
Erekat claimed that Netanyahu was working on the basis of a strategy that rejects the two-state solution and calls for the “elimination of the Palestinian Authority and replacing it with people who are willing to serve as tools for the perpetuation of the occupation.”
Another Fatah official called on the international community to impose sanctions on Israel if and when the annexation plan is implemented. The official warned that the Israeli plan would end the two-state solution and increase tensions and instability in the region.
Palestinian officials also praised the UN for its rejection of the annexation plan.
On Friday, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights “in the Palestinian Territory,” Michael Lynk, warned that the plan “will create a cascade of bad human rights consequences.”
“Israel’s decision to unilaterally march ahead with the planned annexation on July 1 undermines human rights in the region, and would be a severe body blow to the rules-based international order,” Lynk said.
“It would also further undermine any remaining prospect for a just and negotiated settlement. If Israel’s annexation plans proceed, what would be left of the West Bank would become a Palestinian Bantustan, an archipelago of disconnected islands of territory, completely surrounded and divided up by Israel and unconnected to the outside world. The plan would crystalize a 21st century apartheid, leaving in its wake the demise of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. Legally, morally, politically, this is entirely unacceptable.”