President Mahmoud Abbas meets Jake Sullivan and seeks US stress on Israel to halt its unlawful settlement development and its “daily killings and incursions into Palestinian cities and towns.”
![Abbas [R] called on Sullivan to reverse Trump administration's punitive steps against the Palestinians.](https://cdni0.trtworld.com/w960/h540/q75/148425_PSE20230119_1674170660669.jpg)
(AFP)
Palestine’s President Mahmoud Abbas has met with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, interesting to the Biden administration to cease the Israeli authorities from urgent forward with escalatory measures towards the Palestinians.
The new Israeli coalition’s insurance policies “are destroying the remaining chances of achieving peace and stability in the region,” Abbas informed Sullivan, based on a press release from his workplace on Thursday.
He urged the United States “to intervene before it is too late to stop these unilateral measures.”
Sullivan additionally met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the 2 allies’ highest degree in-person talks since Israel’s most far-right authorities ever took energy final month.
His go to comes amid unease in Washington over Netanyahu’s insurance policies and over a number of members of his ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox governing coalition, which is already taking a tough line towards the Palestinians and is anticipated to ramp up development in unlawful Jewish settlements within the occupied West Bank.
Israel’s new authorities has already confirmed to be a headache for the Biden administration, with extremist Cabinet minister Itamar Ben-Gvir storming Al Aqsa Mosque complicated and the coalition taking combative steps towards the Palestinian Authority that run counter to Biden’s efforts to spice up US-Palestine ties.
US officers have beforehand expressed issues about at the very least two far-right senior Cabinet ministers, Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who’ve expressed vehement anti-Palestine views prior to now. Nonetheless, Washington has stated it can have interaction with Netanyahu’s authorities primarily based on its insurance policies and never on personalities.
Ben-Gvir, a lawmaker recognized for anti-Arab vitriol and provocative stunts, is the minister of nationwide safety, a strong place that places him in command of Israel’s police power. Smotrich, chief of the Religious Zionism get together, which shares anti-Palestine views, oversees the Israeli defence physique in command of Palestinian civil affairs.
Abbas pressured to Sullivan the significance of the US exerting stress on Israel to halt its unlawful settlement development and its “daily killings and incursions into Palestinian cities and towns.”
Two Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli navy arrest raid into Jenin refugee camp within the northern West Bank on Thursday. Last yr was the deadliest for Palestinians within the occupied West Bank in 18 years.
Abbas additionally known as on Sullivan to reverse the Trump administration’s punitive steps towards the Palestinians by restoring the US Consulate in Jerusalem that oversees American ties to Palestinians within the West Bank and reopening the Palestine Liberation Organization’s workplace in Washington.
Netanyahu touts friendship with Biden
Meanwhile, a press release from Netanyahu’s workplace stated the 2 mentioned Iran’s nuclear programme and methods to broaden normalisation agreements reached underneath the Trump administration with 4 Arab international locations.
“I’ve known President (Joe) Biden for 40 years as a great friend of Israel,” Netanyahu informed Sullivan, based on footage launched from the assembly. “We see you as a trusted partner in matters of assuring security and, of course, advancing peace.”
Sullivan informed Netanyahu that Biden’s “commitment to the state of Israel is bone deep,” a “commitment that’s rooted in shared history, shared interests and shared values.”
Netanyahu informed Sullivan that the measures, together with halting Palestinian development in components of the occupied West Bank and withholding badly wanted tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority that Israel collects on its behalf, represented a mandatory response to the Palestinians pushing the UN’s highest judicial physique to provide its opinion on the Israeli occupation.
Sullivan additionally met with senior Israeli safety officers, together with the pinnacle of the Mossad.
He and Israeli National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi held digital discussions with their Bahraini and Emirati counterparts about learn how to deepen cooperation in “clean energy, emerging technology, regional security, and commercial relations,” the White House stated.
Israel normalised ties with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates in US-backed agreements in 2020.
Source: TRTWorld and businesses
