Abbas: If resolution to end 'occupation' not passed, we will stop dealing with Israeli government

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat on Tuesday urged the United States to refrain from blocking a Palestinian drive for statehood.

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the UN Headquarters in New York [File] (photo credit: REUTERS)
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the UN Headquarters in New York [File]
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas threatened on Tuesday to sever all ties with Israel if the statehood resolution presented to the UN Security Council last week did not receive approval.
Speaking to reporters in the Algeria, Abbas said the Palestinians were “determined to restore their rights, including the right of return for refugees and the release of all Palestinians from Israeli prison.”
He added, “We won’t surrender to the occupation’s policy of dominance and repression. The Palestinian cause is the key to peace and war in the Middle East and the basis for maintaining security and peace.”
Abbas repeated his threat to dissolve the PA if the latest statehood bid at the Security Council failed.
“If we fail, we will halt all dealings with the Israeli government and ask it to assume its responsibilities as an occupation state,” he said.
He also repeated his call for a “peaceful and popular resistance against settlements and the racist separation wall.”
Abbas mocked Israelis who have branded him a “diplomatic terrorist,” adding that Palestinian diplomacy had been successful in isolating Israel’s “expansionist policy.”
Meanwhile, Arab League Secretary- General Nabil Elarabi said he was considering dispatching a delegation to Washington to urge the US administration to refrain from vetoing the Palestinian statehood resolution. He said that Arab League foreign ministers were scheduled to meet on January 15 to discuss ways of mustering worldwide support for the resolution, which calls for setting a timeline for an Israeli withdrawal to the pre- 1967 lines.
Elarabi said it was important to remind the US of UN Resolution 465, which passed in 1980 and which considers settlements illegal.
He said the world had begun realizing the dangers of the Israeli- Arab conflict’s continuation, especially in the aftermath of the last war in the Gaza Strip.

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Meanwhile Hamas joined several Palestinian groups that have rejected Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s statehood bid at the UN Security Council.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that the draft resolution that was presented to the Security Council last week, and which calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines, does not represent the Palestinians.
“This resolution has does not have any national cover,” Abu Zuhri said, noting that many Palestinian groups have rejected it.
Abu Zuhri called on Abbas to withdraw the draft resolution from the Security Council.