“Abbas has decided to sign peace deal with Israel”

BY YAAKOV KATZ, JPOST

Trump Abbas

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has crossed the Rubicon and voiced “unprecedented” readiness to reach a peace deal with Israel, sources close to the efforts to renew talks between Israel and the Palestinians have told The Jerusalem Post.

Abbas, according to the sources, made this clear to President Donald Trump during their meeting at the White House last week. The president plans to use his trip to Israel later this month to receive assurances from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he, too, is committed to a peace agreement.

Since his meeting with Trump last week, Abbas has changed his rhetoric, issuing a number of statements meant to reflect flexibility on previous demands. He has, for example, said that he would renew the talks under Trump’s auspices without preconditions. In the past, he had said he would not negotiate with Netanyahu without a freeze to settlement construction.

He has also sent his advisers to the press to declare that the Palestinians are prepared to negotiate land swaps with Israel, a recognition that some West Bank settlements will remain part of Israel in the framework of a future deal.

Netanyahu, on the other hand, has largely remained quiet. The strategy within the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem seems to be to wait and hope not to be blamed for preventing the success of the peace talks Trump is planning to restart following his visit on May 22.

As reported earlier this week in Maariv and the Post, the person responsible for this change in Abbas is Ronald Lauder, the American billionaire and head of the World Jewish Congress, who is one of the closest people to Trump. Lauder has publicly said that he has known Trump for over 50 years and that he is a “great and true friend” of Israel.

Before Abbas met with Trump last week, he stopped by Lauder’s house for dinner and got briefed on ways to win over the president. To some, it seems that Lauder has bypassed Sheldon Adelson as the most influential Jew in Trump’s circle.

Lauder has been pushing for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal for years and was in Cairo two months ago for a meeting with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ahead of the Egyptian leader’s visit to the White House. Lauder, sources say, seems to have been tapped by the president as something of a semi-official envoy to the region with an emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Politicians who spoke to Lauder at Sunday’s Jerusalem Post Conference in New York later told the Post that he told them about his meeting with Abbas. At the same time, Netanyahu told confidants that he was furious over the American Jewish leader’s involvement.

“You don’t understand how much influence he has over Trump,” the prime minister told a confidant in a private conversation this week.

“Out of the people around Trump, he is my biggest challenge to overcome.”

May 12, 2017 | 14 Comments »

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14 Comments / 14 Comments

  1. Abbas can always blame Hamas and Iran when push come to shove. What about IL?
    Taqiyya and Hudna in play. Trump or no Trump.

  3. Maybe I am missing something in this article and comments that follow. But I think, if all you Trump haters would step back and realize that Trump is not in control of his time in the White House, you might began to see that God(Hashem) is in CONTROL. If you have eyes to see and ears in which to hear you might just see the “hand of God.”

  4. This is groundhog day and pure political theater designed to deceive our new president. Abbas has never abided by any agreement involving Israel and he is no different than his mentor and predecessor Yasser Arafat. What they promise in English is the opposite of what they promise in Arabic. Abbas has honed taqiyya – lying in the service of Islam – to an art form. Abbas is not a partner for peace and any agreement he makes with President Trump is a FAKE agreement.

  7. @ Bear Klein: Bingo! The other Arabs only care about the ‘illusion’. It is not a waste of time (except for Israel?) as long as they are talking. As for Russia? Abbas should be careful what he wishes for. Russia’s Orthodox Church has long yearned for Jerusalem. Putin can offer Abbas a retirement villa, in Siberia.

  8. Lauder doesn’t have to live with the consequences of any deal so he shouldn’t be involved, he’s overreaching the Israeli electorate.

    For that matter, neither does Abbas have to live with the consequences at his age. A leader who can lead the Pals to a new perspective needs to make any deal, not a disciple of Arafat.

  9. :
    What a load of baloney.

    The creepy Arab also promised to build walls around Jewish “settlements”, and that he would get ISIS to pay for them.

  10. Abbas is scared of Trump. Will this result in a peace deal NO WAY!!!

    Trump wants to get Arab Countries on board to fight ISIS. This is the USA interest.

    Trump appears to have illusions of the “Ultimate Deal” peace between the Israelis and Arabs. His Ambassador Friedman who understands the middle east has told him the chances of this are very slim. If he had been candid he would have told there are actually two chances completely not happening and impossible. Others in Trumps circle have told him the same thing but for the USA’s interests in getting Arabs on-board in fighting ISIS plus illusions of making the ultimate deal he is proceeding.

    Abbas is also trying to get the Russians involved in negotiations a way to take the heat of himself from Trump.

    The trouble with all this Oslo continuation is that it keeps Israel going in circles and not on to a new paradigm.

    Eventually Trump will realize he is wasting his time. Hopefully sooner than later.

  11. Abbas has no influence on Hamas. Hamas is more powerful influence on the Arabs than Abbas. Never in the past have these people kept their word or any other agreements. This is just another taqiyya.

  12. Israel could never satisfy Palestinian demands and still maintain their security needs.

    An Abbas signature on a piece of paper has meant nothing in the past and would mean nothing on any future agreement. Abbas has been calling for the destruction of Israel and death to Jews and nothing will change no matter how many agreements he signs with Israel. He has no intention on honoring any agreement he makes with Israel.

  13. @ Sebastien Zorn:
    It’s all about appearance and image. That’s what the liberal parodies of conservatives are like. Look at the SNL parodies of Trump or Palin. All surface.

    Liberals/Progressives are permanent adolescents. Which is why they make wistful, nostalgic, admiring allowances, as well, for youthful hooliganism, as long as it fits within their paradigm.

    Conversely, Liberals can always be counted on to be suckered by a pretty face that says what they want to hear. Hard to believe that the oldest of them is old enough to vote, right?

    P.S.

    I was reminded of the charming serial killer analogy from a terrific Kdrama I am watching:

    “Queen of Mystery
    A housewife with insanely strong deduction skills accidentally solves a crime. Now she’s partnered up with an old-school detective. Watson and Holmes got nothing on the Queen of Mystery.

    Episode 11 now streaming! New episodes every Thursday and Friday!”

    https://www.dramafever.com/drama/5016/Queen_of_Mystery/

  14. IX:26. “Peace proposals unaccompanied by a sworn covenant indicate a plot.” Sun Tzu, The Art of War

    http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html

    “The devil is in the details.” – anonymous

    Anyway, the headline is misleading. It says that Abbas agreed to sit down with BB and negotiate without pre-conditions. And that is a concession. Of course, now we have to hope that, given the opportunity, BB won’t give away the store again. Also, I find it really, really hard to believe that Abbas will actually stop the incitement, the subsidies of terror and terrorists. It’s completely built in. And it’s popular. If the election were held tomorrow, Hamas would win. Hands down. That’s why Abbas is serving the twelth year of a four year term.

    “Abbas was elected on 9 January 2005 to serve as President of the Palestinian National Authority until 9 January 2009, but extended his term until the next election in 2010, citing the PLO constitution, and on December 16, 2009 was voted into office indefinitely by the PLO Central Council. As a result, Fatah’s main rival, Hamas, announced that it would not recognize the extension or view Abbas as the rightful president.[7][8][9] Abbas was chosen as the President of the State of Palestine by the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Council on 23 November 2008,[1] a job he had held unofficially since 8 May 2005.[10]”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Abbas

    This character is no more representative of his constituents than Assad. And his successors will ignore any thing he agrees to, in the unlikely event he makes any substantive concessions.

    I can see why liberals trust him though. Like Stalin, Nasser, Ho Chi Minh, Castro and a host of others, he does have a nice, photogenic smile.

    “10 Of The Most Charming Serial Killers Ever”

    https://www.scoopwhoop.com/inothernews/most-charming-serial-killers-ever/#.7rjtpw7p4

    “Fidel Castro in 1959: ‘I Am Not Communism’
    FRI, AUG 14

    Meet the Press looks back to April 19, 1959 when Fidel Castro appeared on the show to talk about his opinion of Americans and communism, saying “there is no doubt for me between democracy and communism…that is why we call our ideas humanismo.””

    http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/castro-in-1959-i-dont-hate-anybody-including-my-enemies-504767043668

    Fidel Castro Interview on Ed Sullivan – 1959

    https://youtu.be/kjpnfDwWd7Y

    Fidel Castro on Face the Nation

    https://youtu.be/KlOFbLLaOtg

    1964 THROWBACK: CHE GUEVARA On “FACE THE NATION”

    https://youtu.be/CPCuzfDeUpc

    [funny coincidence: there’s is a short commercial with Henry Fonda in the beginning. He played the villain opposite Charles Bronson in the Spaghetti Western, “Once Upon a Time in the West,” which I mentioned in an earlier post. He normally played heroic or everyman roles. It was his only role as a villain.]

    An Interview Of Stalin By H.G. Wells (Marxism Versus Liberalism) (1934)

    https://youtu.be/AM7u1-BQ8ww

    Stalin Soviet Elections Speech 1937 (Full) ENGLISH SUBS

    https://youtu.be/_J846RnLbts

    Actually, now that I think of it, doesn’t Abbas resemble Stalin, down to the mustache?

    Such warm, avuncular, everyman modesty. Aw, shucks. Why he could be your old dad, grandad or uncle. Wouldn’t harm a fly. Right?