By David Singer ——Bio and Archives--September 24, 2017
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"Readout of President Donald J. Trump's Meeting with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority"
"President Donald J. Trump and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority met yesterday in New York to continue working toward an enduring Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement."The Palestinian Authority has not existed since 3 January 2013 following Abbas issuing this decree:
"Official documents, seals, signs and letterheads of the Palestinian National Authority official and national institutions shall be amended by replacing the name 'Palestinian National Authority' whenever it appears by the name 'State of Palestine' and by adopting the emblem of the State of Palestine."The Palestinian Authority was created pursuant to the "Agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area" dated 4 May 1994 signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) - Article V providing:
"Israel won't be happy about it because anything that undermines the peace process, any unilateral act, is not helpful.
"Palestine is a country under occupation. What was Norway, Finland, Holland, France, Korea, Philippines between 1939 and 1945 - nation states under occupation. Today, the state of Palestine is officially a state under occupation. It has 192 member countries that recognise this and a nation state, Israel, which is the occupying power; these are the new realities."The farce continues--as President Trump gives his apparent imprimatur to meeting with the phantom head of a phantom non-existent Palestinian Authority. President Trump is sorely mistaken if he believes that maintaining this facade will advance his efforts to end the Arab-Jewish conflict. Abbas needs to be called out by Trump for abandoning the Oslo Accords and pursuing a policy that will not lead to resolving the long-running conflict--but rather exacerbate it and make it more difficult to resolve. Trump needs to replace the deceased Palestinian Authority with living Arab negotiating partners.
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David Singer is an Australian Lawyer, a Foundation Member of the International Analyst Network and Convenor of Jordan is Palestine International—an organization calling for sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza to be allocated between Israel and Jordan as the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine. Previous articles written by him can be found at: jordanispalestine.blogspot.com