Ahead of UN speech, Palestinian leader eschews direct talks

“The peace process must be multilateral”. Abbas faces the world body knowing that the most recent polling back home shows a strong majority of Palestinians believe it’s time for him to step aside.

Alaa Abu Amer, a former assistant to a Palestinian foreign minister for Eastern Europe affairs, told Al-Monitor that Abbas’ visit to Moscow stems from the Palestinian conviction that “Russia is beginning to return as a key [player] in worldwide politics, especially in the Middle East. [Palestinians] are also [dissatisfied] with the US’ stubborn policies that Arabs and Palestinians see as unable to resolve the pending regional issues in light of a U.S. attempt to tear the region apart and turn it into small rival states in order to serve the Israeli project”. The PA has represented the Palestinians in a United States brokered Israeli-Palestine peace dialogue, that faced various roadblocks and was finally called off right before Israel’s summer offensive on Gaza previous year that killed over 2000 people.

In the Huffington Post, Abbas accused Israel of imposing a regime that is worse than apartheid. “But our situation is even more dire because Israel, the occupying power, is not only executing a system of segregation and subjugation; it persists with the blatant ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from their land”. “While the Israeli government pays lip service to the two-state solution internationally, domestically it employs policies aimed at destroying what’s left of Palestine”, he wrote. “Israel is a one state, the nation state of the Jewish people”. At least six Palestinians suffered leg injuries. The Israeli government has attempted to disassociate itself from the attack, but the truth is that its pervasive and systematic colonization of Palestine with settlements, messages of intolerance, flouting of worldwide law and culture of impunity not only facilitated that attack but continue to encourage others like it. Since then, Israel has failed to negotiate in good faith while entrenching its illegal occupation. Not when there’s peace between Palestinian parties.

Many Palestinians suspect Israel wants to make changes to the status quo that has governed rights of access since 1967 – something Israel has denied. We can not directly negotiate with a power that has this level of control and exhibits such contempt for the rights and existence of our people.

Ahead of his Wednesday address to the United Nations, Abbas says the model should be based on the type of negotiations process that took place in the Balkans, Libya and Iran. They should be attempted to decisively end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict after all these years of futile attempts to achieve peace.

Rajoub cited the game with the UAE earlier in September in the Faisal al-Husseiny Stadium in the same competition amid “great reception” for the UAE players, who also visited al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem.

The grim assessment comes amid bleak signs that any breakthrough can be achieved soon in the peace process.

The column could give a hint about what Abbas plans to say before the U.N.’s General Assembly.

Twelve Palestinians were injured as Israeli forces suppressed a protest near Ramallah, with three demonstrators reportedly injured by live fire.