US President Donald Trump has announced that he will present his peace plan between Israelis and Palestinians tomorrow afternoon, local time (17:00 GMT), at a time when the head of the Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu considered it may be an opportunity of the century.
Trump stated that his Middle East peace plan had a "chance" for success, saying that the Palestinians should accept it because it was good.
Trump told reporters, along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in front of the White House, that he hoped the plan would "eventually" win the support of the Palestinians, who have rejected it from now on, while most experts see the plan as doomed to failure.
This comes at a time when Palestinian sources said that President Mahmoud Abbas told members of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) that he had received threats to pay the price of not answering a phone call from President Trump.
Earlier Monday, Palestinian officials confirmed Abbas had rejected several attempts by US President Donald Trump to discuss the upcoming peace plan.
Officials said that in recent months the White House had tried to make indirect contact with the Palestinian President, but all of them were rejected.
"There will be no discussion with the Americans. The president is sticking to a solution on the basis of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital," added a Palestinian official, who asked not to be named.
| Abbas adheres to a solution based on an independent Palestinian state (Anatolia) |
Strained relationships
American-Palestinian relations shattered after Trump's decision in 2017 regarding recognition of occupied Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the transfer of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and then the following year Washington cut financial aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
The revelation of the Palestinian president's refusal to receive a phone conversation with Trump comes as the latter plans to unveil on Tuesday his plan to settle the Middle East conflict known as the "Deal of the Century", he announced on Friday.
Abbas has repeatedly announced over the past two years that the Palestinians reject the deal of the century because it takes Jerusalem, refugees and borders from the negotiating table.
One day anger
Meanwhile, the Palestinian factions in Gaza announced today, Monday, that the next two days are "two days of anger", rejecting the US peace plan expected to be proposed for peace with Israel.
The factions, in a statement to the High Follow-up Committee after their meeting in Gaza, confirmed the rejection of the American deal "as one of the links of the American conspiracy against the Palestinian people and their cause."
This comes at a time when dozens of Palestinians demonstrated outside the United Nations headquarters in Gaza to condemn the American plan and Israel's plans to annex areas of the West Bank to its sovereignty.
Speakers emphasized during the demonstration the rejection of the American deal as "a conspiracy aimed at liquidating the Palestinian issue", calling for Arab and Islamic action to counter it.