PALESTINIAN President Mahmoud Abbas has announced that his Administration considers all agreements signed with Israel and the United States null and void, after Israel declared it would annex parts of the occupied West Bank. During an emergency meeting held in Ramallah to discuss the Israeli plans, he declared that Israeli occupation authority, as of today, has to shoulder all responsibilities and obligations in front of the international community as an occupying power over the territory of the occupied State of Palestine.
The fuller implications of the announcement are not yet known as Mr. Abbas has stopped short of dissolving the Palestinian Authority. It is also a fact that he made similar pronouncements in the past, which did not materialize for understandable reasons and, therefore, skepticism prevails about the fresh announcement. However, the move is reflection of utter frustration of Palestinians over plans of the US and the Jewish State to annex Israeli-occupied Arab territories, which is part of the Trump’s so-called peace plan. The situation becomes all the more grim as Tel Aviv is set to implement the plan unilaterally as annexing parts of the occupied West Bank and the Jordan Valley as part of Trump’s Middle East Plan was a central promise of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest re-election campaign. His former political rivals-turned-allies Benny Gantz and Gabi Ashkenazi have also expressed their support of the plan. There is stiff opposition from Palestinians and the international community too has rejected the plan but Israel seems determined to implement it on the plea that these territories are where the Jewish nation was born and grew. Palestinians might or might not actually scrap all agreements but it is a foregone conclusion that illegal annexation, which has been described as ‘new war crime’ by the Arab League would breed more violence and could deal a permanent blow to prospects of any just settlement of the Middle-East conflict.
