Hamas official warns Abbas against meeting Trump

A senior member of the Hamas Political Bureau and head of its national relations department has warned of the dangers posed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas visiting Washington unilaterally, without a national consensus.

In an exclusive interview with Quds Press, Dr Salah Bardawil criticised what he called “the exaggeration and dramatisation of the results of the phone call between US President Donald Trump and Abbas on Friday evening.” He said that this was in the context of Trump’s extremist discourse towards the Arabs, Muslims and the Palestinian cause.

According to Bardawil, it was unlikely that the call was in favour of Palestine and he expressed his fear that it may be a part of the process aiming to liquidate the Palestinian cause. “What Abbas and his people are doing is marketing for the future,” said the Hamas official. “This is basically grasping at straws and escaping forward, rather than Mahmoud Abbas having strong points.” The regional and international conditions, as well as the American administration’s mood and the PA’s insistence on maintaining the divide, does not give Abbas any strong cards in order to amend the US vision of Palestine, he added.

Bardawil warned that there are “serous dangers awaiting the Palestinian cause in light of the taboo relations between Trump’s “uncontrollable administration” and the “deteriorating” PA. “We are witnessing unilateral actions by Abbas, who has not referred to the Palestinian forces or people. He still holds on to the unilateral approach and wants to burden the Palestinian people with the results of his unilateral actions on the instructions of the US, which everyone knows serves the interests of Israel.”

He urged Abbas not to chase “the mirage promoted by the Trump and Netanyahu administrations, and to return to the Palestinian ranks and unite the Palestinians via an agreed-upon political programme and to manage the Palestinian cause collectively.”

A collective Palestinian leadership, he insisted, would preserve the Arab demands and would not allow foreign intervention in the region.