Why Palestinians Will Not Accept Advice from Arabs
by Khaled Abu Toameh • October 14, 2020 at 6:00 am
Palestinian leaders are continuing to act not only against the advice of [former Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak and other Arabs, but also against the interests of their own people.
"The Palestinian leadership has lost its credibility in the eyes of the new Arab generation, which is a generation of technology...." — Abdullah Al-Ghathami, professor of criticism and theory at King Saud University, Twitter, September 25, 2020.
Pointedly,.... the Fatah delegation in Istanbul last week met with officials from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, as well as Turkish and Qatari intelligence officers.... and discussed... ways of "coordinating positions to direct blows to the interests of the Arab countries, especially the Arab Gulf states and Egypt."
The report added that "analysts specializing in the Palestinian issue commented that Qatar and Turkey will use Abbas to harm the interests of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Sudan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia."
The report also revealed that Qatar recently gave Abbas and some of his aides more than $50 million for their personal bank accounts inside banks in Israel and the Palestinian Authority areas."
Shortly after Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in January 2005, Egypt's then President Hosni Mubarak was asked what advice he would give Palestinian leaders.
Mubarak, in an interview with the Al-Arabiya television network, replied:
"There has to be a new thinking about the Palestinian issue. Otherwise, we [Arabs] will continue to say no. We have been saying no for the past 50 years, and that is why we missed many opportunities. We said no to the [UN's 1947] Partition Plan, and in 1967 we said no to recognizing Israel in return for a withdrawal [to the 1949 armistice lines]. At the time, we said that what was taken by force can only be restored by force.
