Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas slammed President Donald Trump Sunday evening, and decried the Jewish state as a “colonial” European project, unconnected to the Jewish people.
Addressing the opening of a two-day meeting of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Central Council in Ramallah Sunday, Abbas excoriated both President Donald Trump over his historic December 6th recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and the State of Israel and Zionism.
Europeans, Abbas claimed, “wanted to bring the Jews here [to the Land of Israel] from Europe in order to protect European interests in the region. They asked The Netherlands, which then had the largest navy in the world, to relocate the Jews.”
Abbas then quoted an Egyptian writer who claimed that “Israel is a colonial project with no connection whatsoever to the Jews.”
The PA chairman lashed out at the US president, claiming that his recent behavior, including his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, constituted a “slap in the face” to the PA, warning that the PA “will slap back”.
“We won’t take orders from anyone,” said Abbas. “We told Trump we will never accept his [peace] plan. His ‘deal of the century’ is the slap in the face of the century, and we will not accept it.”
“I saw his tweet which said that ‘We will not give aid to the Palestinians because they refuse to relaunch negotiations’,” Abbas continued, cursing the president in Arabic, “May your house be destroyed.”
“When did you offer me this? On the phone? On television?”
"Trump [says he] took Jerusalem off the [negotiating] table with a tweet," said Abbas. "The status of Jerusalem is like Mecca. Nothing is more important than Jerusalem."
Abbas also criticized the United Kingdom, slamming Britain’s 1917 Balfour Declaration, which expressed support for the establishment of a Jewish national home in the historic Land of Israel. Abbas reiterated his demands that the UK apologize for the declaration and pay compensation to the PA for alleged damages.
“We still demand that the British apologize for the Balfour Declaration,” Abbas said Sunday. “And we still demand they recognize Palestinian statehood.”
Oded Revivi, Chief Foreign Envoy of the YESHA Council, the official representative organization for the 450,000 Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria, released the following response to Abbas' speech:"The corrupt Palestinian Authority was a creation of the Oslo-Accords. If the Oslo process is dead as suggested by Abbas - it would follow that the Palestinian Authority and its leadership are irrelevant. It's time to find alternative Palestinian leaders and alternative peace plans that focus on building bridges between real people on the ground instead of making people like Abbas rich and famous."
Last year, ahead of the 100th anniversary of the declaration, Abbas issued a statement demanding the UK apologize for Balfour.
During his address, Abbas also claimed that the Oslo agreements, beginning with the 1993 Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, better known as the Oslo I Accord, were nullified.
"I am saying that Oslo, there is no Oslo," said Abbas. "Israel ended Oslo."
Last Friday, PLO officials told AFP that the terror group’s central council had formed a special committee to weigh various responses to President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem, as well as his threats to cut spending for the Palestinian Authority, as well as to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the UN body which provides benefits to some five million Arabs claiming refugee status as descendants of those who fled Israel during its establishment in 1948.
Ahead of Sunday’s meeting, Abbas praised a series of violent protests and attacks on Israeli civilians and security personnel following Trump’s December 6th declaration, hailing the incidents as the beginning of a new “uprising” against the Jewish state.