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TEHRAN (Iran News) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has firmly dismissed the US plan supposedly aimed at ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying it is in breach of UN resolutions and Palestinian sovereignty.

“I would like to say to Mr. Donald Trump that his plan cannot achieve peace and security as it cancels international legitimacy,” Abbas told the UN Security Council in a speech on Tuesday, referring to the US president.

“It cancels all the rights of the Palestinians. This does not meet the aspirations of a two-state solution,” he added.

Stressing that the plan would legitimize Israel’s illegal settlements and the annexation of occupied Palestinian land, Abbas said, “If you impose peace, it will not last, it cannot last. What gives you the right to annex these lands?”

The Palestinian president also called on the international community not to consider the plan as an international reference for negotiations, saying, “It is an Israeli-American preemptive plan in order to put an end to the question of Palestine.”

Trump unveiled the scheme’s outlines on January 28. The plan features the recognition of Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s “capital,” although Palestinians want the city’s eastern part as the capital of their future state.

The US president also said under the plan, Israel would be annexing the settlements that it has been building in the West Bank since occupying the Palestinian territory in 1967.

This is while all previous foreign-mediated draft agreements between the Palestinians and Israelis as well as repeated UN resolutions have mandated Tel Aviv to withdraw behind the 1967 borders, as opposed to the new US plan.

Demonstrations held in support of Abbas

The speech delivered by Abbas at the UN came as thousands of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank once again protested against Trump’s so-called “deal of the century.”

The protesters, estimated to be 5,000 to 7,000 in number, gathered in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday.

Demanding the international recognition of Palestine with Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital, the demonstrators chanted “Palestine not for sale,” and “No to the deal of the century,” using Trump’s self-congratulatory description of the plan.

Similar mass demonstrations also took place elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, as some 2,000 people came out in support of the Palestinian president and to voice firm objection to the deal.

“As the world watches you and all these crowds that fill the streets of Ramallah and Gaza, they will understand the Palestinian reaction [to the plan],” said Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh while addressing the crowds in Ramallah.

“These people sent a message to President Abbas that we stand behind you to bring down the deal of shame,” he added.

Meanwhile, clashes broke out between Palestinians and Israeli forces after dozen of protesters marched to an Israeli military checkpoint north of Ramallah.

Palestine’s official Wafa news agency quoted witnesses as saying that Israeli soldiers “showered the Palestinians with teargas canisters,” and fired rubber bullets in an attempt to disperse the protesters.

The Palestinians responded by pelting the soldiers with stones and by burning tires.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said 12 Palestinians were injured in the clashes, including two shot by Israeli rubber bullets.

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Oman is claiming that Israel should be fully “accepted” in the Mideast by other countries while the Zionist state “also bears the same obligations.” (I presume this latter involves the Israelis making “peace” not solely on their own terms but on terms cognizant of the aspirations of others, too.) Bahrain’s foreign minister as well as the Saudi foreign minister at the same time expressed the view that “peace talks” would help normalize diplomatic ties between Israel and the Arabs.

Why the lovefest of late between Israel and various states on the western side of the Persian Gulf? I don’t understand it unless:

1. The Arabs are simply exhausted by decades of discord and enmity with Israel.

2. They see some gain, probably economic, from what amounts to almost total abandonment of the human and political rights, enshrined in international law, of millions of Palestinians at the precise time they, the Palestinians, have never been under such duress and attack in the West Bank and Gaza.

3. Arab alignment with Israel puts more pressure on Iran to conform to U.S. and Arab demands, given that Iran is feared by the Arabs. 4. They don’t have guts.

One cannot anyway assume that “Israel” is not going to be around, at least not in any foreseeable future. One cannot say that “Israel” has absolutely no right to exist even if Palestine was literally stolen from the natives last century. But what “Israel”?

Who could legitimately argue with Israel if it fully democratized and gave up the “Jewish state” insistence, or alternatively gave the Palestinians an East Jerusalem capital and a viable state with the “Green Line” its border?

And also gave the Golan back to Syria. If Israel did all this, would it have to, as it claims, be so worried about Arab or Iranian hostility? No, because the hostility would vanish.

But what is most distressing right now is that these various Arab states are making friendly overtures to the Zionists at the precise moment that Israel has become a full-fledged pariah to 95 percent of humanity, and while its sole big benefactor, the U.S., is at risk of losing its monetary control of much of the world as well as it’s “empire”, because it is slowly bankrupting itself fiscally and morally and making enemies with its sanctions almost everywhere.

Now, for example, John Bolton and Trump are even trying to sanction Venezuela for attempting to sell some of its own gold reserves. It seems as if the concept of national sovereignty has been abolished by the U.S., including national/private property.

Sanctions don’t appear to work, at least with Iran. In fact, if recent history is any guide, they have only worked when concessions have been made TO Iran, which is another way of demonstrating that some real “fairness” has been applied. (And in any case, Mike Pompeo’s 12 demands of Iran are insulting and concede nothing.)

Further, Trump is going to fail to push Iran’s oil exports to zero, and some waivers have already been granted to some Iranian oil importers such as India. But attempting to escalate sanctions now, even if Iran remains in the JCPOA and thus will not expand its nuclear program, is likely to witness an escalation of Iranian interests in Syria and Iraq.

Also, inasmuch as there is a crisis underway, this is a crisis the U.S. fomented unilaterally. The JCPOA was working just fine and the Trump Administration could have leveraged off that and addressed Iran with more, serious diplomacy to try to manage other issues. Guess who scuttled that approach — the Zionists, whose idea of “peace” reflects the musings of the Roman historian Tacitus when he wrote about the Roman conquest of Britain – “making a desert and calling it peace.”

This latter is something the weak-kneed Arabs seem to be forgetting as they kiss up to the Zionists and Natanyahu like a bunch of abject pansies.

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