Abbas Calls for Intensifying ‘Popular Resistance’ against Israel

The Palestinians, he said, should not “underestimate the importance of popular resistance.”

In closing remarks in Ramallah to the PLO Central Council, a key decision-making body, Abbas called on Palestinians to protest at Khan al-Ahmar, the Bedouin shantytown located east of Ma’aleh Adumim which is slated for demolition, Wall Street Journal reported.

He said the decision to demolish Khan al-Ahmar and evict its 180 residents was part of an Israeli plan to divide the West Bank.

Abbas further said that any funds earmarked for the Gaza Strip should be channeled only through the PA government.

The PLO council, which concluded a three-day conference, reaffirmed Palestinian opposition to US President Donald Trump’s yet-to-be-announced plan for peace in the Middle East and vowed to pursue efforts to thwart it.

“The US administration is a partner of the Israeli occupation government,” the council said. “It is part of the problem, and not part of the solution.”

The Palestinians will continue with their policy of suspending political relations with the US administration until it backtracks on its “illegal decisions” regarding al-Quds (Jerusalem), refugees and settlements, the council said in its statement.

Washington has spent the past eight months dragging its heels on publishing the document and while Trump’s officials have given away nothing publicly, analysts believe the plan is already being implemented by Israel entrenching “apartheid” rule over Palestinians. 

“Israel has a much freer hand than it did in the past. It feels confident enough to continue its existing policies, knowing Trump won’t stand in the way,” Eran Etzion, a former Israeli foreign ministry official, recently told the Middle East Eye.

The US embassy’s move appears to signal that the Trump administration will recognize all of Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s capital. That will deny Palestinians East Jerusalem, long assumed to be the capital of their future state.

Trump’s team is reported to be seeking a face-saving alternative location for a future Palestinian “capital”, with Abu Dis 4 km east of Jerusalem and cut off from the city by Israel’s wall being proposed as the candidate.

The Palestinians are reportedly facing huge pressure to give in to the plan.