"Israel Today" newspaper has amended a statement quoted by the US ambassador to Israel David Friedman about Washington’s efforts to replace the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and choose Muhammad Dahlan, the dismissed leader of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) and residing in the UAE.

The newspaper, loyal to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reported on Thursday that Friedman said that Washington is not thinking about it and that it has no desire to engineer Palestinian leadership.

The director of the Al-Jazeera office in Ramallah, Walid Al-Omari, said that the newspaper had amended the permit in some of its locations, but kept it until this afternoon in its main location.

Al-Omari added that the uproar caused by the statement prompted the newspaper to pretend that its correspondent Ariel Kahane had made a typographical error.

He added that in order for the news to be clear or not, there must be a position from the US embassy to Israel or from the US administration that determines whether Ambassador David Friedman said so or not.

The director of the Al-Jazeera office in Ramallah clarified that what the Hebrew newspaper reported is not limited to that the US administration is thinking or not thinking of replacing Abbas and the Palestinian leadership and putting Muhammad Dahlan in his place, as Friedman asserts that the plan to annex up to a third of the occupied West Bank is still in place. And that it will be implemented at a time that does not cause confusion.

As stated in Friedman's statements, the current suspension of the plan to annex the Palestinian lands is a temporary suspension, and he stressed that within months or a year the Arab-Israeli conflict will end because many countries will soon sign agreements for normalization with Israel.

In the same statements, the ambassador accused the Palestinian leadership of being on the wrong side of history, as he considers that joining the path of normalization will make it on the right side.

Friedman has said repeatedly that the West Bank lands are part of Israel, and that the Jews have the right to settle in them. He also strongly defended the United States ’recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and became the first diplomat to assume responsibility for the US embassy after its transfer from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Rejection and condemnation


The statement of the US ambassador, David Friedman, on replacing Abbas with Dahlan, has sparked angry Palestinian responses.

The spokesman for the Palestinian presidency, Nabil Abu Rudeina, said that the threats of the American ambassador were part of what he described as the suspicious campaign and plots aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause.

He added that only the Palestinian people determine their leadership on democratic foundations, and it is not the United States and those who describe them as its agents in the region.

Abu Rudeineh said that the steadfastness of President Mahmoud Abbas in the face of what he described as the policy of surrender, and his preservation of national values, especially Jerusalem, that determines the future of Palestine and will shape the region.

For his part, Osama al-Qawasmi, a member of the Revolutionary Council and a spokesman for the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah), said that the US ambassador’s statements were rejected and constituted an interference in the Palestinian issue.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Al-Qawasmi stressed that the Palestinian people are the ones who determine their leadership through the elections.

For his part, Dahlan responded through his official accounts by saying, "He who is not elected by his people will not be able to lead, and this is only done through elections, and someone has not yet been born who can impose his will on us."

He added, "If what is attributed to the American ambassador to the occupying country is correct, then that is nothing more than a deceitful tactic aimed at terrorizing some and destabilizing the home front, and I hope everyone will not fall into the trap of such carefully engineered tactics."

As for the leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Sami Abu Zuhri, he said that Friedman's statements represent unacceptable interference in internal affairs, and that there will be no Palestinian president except through the Palestinian will.

Friedman's statements met with factional and popular responses. His statements are considered an Emirati demand and an attempt to impose Dahlan as a Palestinian president and market him.