With the US so heavily committed to supporting Israel, and protecting them from any UN resolutions, it’s always been difficult for the Palestinian leadership to trust the US to be an impartial moderator for peace efforts. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says Wednesday’s move by President Trump to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital has effectively ended that entirely.
Abbas says there is no way at this point that the Palestinians can trust the US to be a mediator, saying Trump’s move encourages Israel to continue the occupation and expansion of settlements, undermining the two-state solution.
Trump has suggested that the recognition of the capital is going to help the peace process, though the Secretaries of State and Defense are both warning the move risks provoking regional violence, and White House officials say that the recognition threatens the peace process in the near-term.
Both Israel and Palestine envision Jerusalem as their future capital, and Israel’s definition of Jerusalem has expanded dramatically over the years, including large amounts of occupied Palestinian territory into a “greater Jerusalem.”
While Abbas says he continues to view Jerusalem as Palestine’s “eternal capital,” language identical to Israel’s. He is under increasing pressure from his top allies in the Palestinian authority to do more, however, including abandoning US-brokered efforts.
While the Palestinian abandonment of the US process could give Israel an excuse to ditch the process too and further expand settlements, and probably with a tacit US endorsement, since their effort provoked such a move.
This has been true for a long time. This is not even the first time Abbas admitted it in public. Yet he keeps coming back to the US. He comes for the money. Then he spends much of that money in Israel or on security for Israelis. What Abbas gets from that is the opportunity to skim off the top. The Palestinians have gotten nothing from anybody, not even their own so-called leaders, for a very long time.
The “peace” process has been a one-sided “piece” process, as Israel absorbs Palestine piece by piece – and once they have it all, they won’t stop there either
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Come on, their leadership is entirely corrupt, just as the US leadership is entirely corrupt, just as the Israeli leadership is entirely corrupt.
That’s how it becomes the leadership.
The only time the leadership ISN’T corrupt, is, sometimes, is after a recent revolution in which the previous leadership is either expelled or killed, and the population is highly suspicious of the new leadership.