The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused the Hamas movement of undermining our goal of establishing an independent Palestinian state that includes all of the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip, threatening to thwart it, during a speech on Sunday.
Abbas spoke at a ceremony commemorating the 14th anniversary of the death of late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, at the presidential headquarters in the central West Bank.
He stressed “There is an American conspiracy, which is the ‘Deal of the Century,’ and there is an Israeli conspiracy to implement the ‘Deal of the Century.'”
Abbas also stressed “To my dismay, there is another conspiracy from Hamas to foil the independent state. The ‘Deal of the Century’ and the plan of Hamas to disrupt the establishment of a Palestinian state will not pass.”
He pointed out that the Palestinian Central Council (PCC) decided to take significant decisions in the next few days and said “We are going to take tough measures against Hamas in the coming days.”Abbas continued, “We will continue to struggle to fight for the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to establish their independent state.”He pointed out that he opposed the Israeli decision to deduct part of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) tax revenues, in order to transfer the money to the besieged Gaza Strip, in return “for providing calm” along the Gaza border with Israel.The PA considered the transfer of money to be a “conspiracy” to establish a state along the borders of the Gaza Strip without the West Bank.Abbas added, “None of our people will forget that Yasser Arafat is the independent Palestinian decision he has maintained despite all the obstacles and plots,” and noted that “Nobody forgets that Yasser Arafat is the one who said the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is the sole and legitimate representative of our Palestinian people.”
