US Accuses Palestinian Authority of Killing Peace Plan

US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt. (AP file photo)
US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt. (AP file photo)
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US Accuses Palestinian Authority of Killing Peace Plan

US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt. (AP file photo)
US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt. (AP file photo)

The Palestinian leadership is trying to kill the peace plan of US President Donald Trump, referred to as “deal of the century”, even before its unveiling, warned Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt.

He urged the authority to hold fire until they see the details, saying it would be a mistake to declare it “dead on arrival.”

In an interview with Reuters, Greenblatt pushed back against Palestinian officials’ rebuke of the coming peace proposals that they believe will be heavily biased in favor of Israel and deliver a blow to their goal of statehood.

“The Palestinian Authority is trying to kill a plan they haven’t seen,” said Greenblatt, who has openly exchanged criticism with senior Palestinian officials.

Greenblatt and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner are heading a team preparing to roll out the plan as early as June. The two intend to proceed despite deep skepticism among experts that they can succeed where decades of US-backed efforts have failed. However, further delays are always possible, given Middle East volatility, including tensions from recent Gaza violence.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has boycotted US peace efforts since late 2017 when the US president decided to move his embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in violation of a decades-US policy.

President Mahmoud Abbas had reiterated the firm Palestinian position rejecting the “deal of the century”.

He asserted that the PA does not expect US officials to offer anything important, because the “important things they have offered are all against us.”

“We reject everything that Kushner says, and we reject everything they [the Americans] have presented, be it with regard to Jerusalem, the refugees, borders, settlements or any others,” he was quoted as saying by the Wafa news agency.

The PA launched a major campaign against the plan and sent letters to delegations of various countries explaining the conditions and mechanisms of implementation of the decisions of the Central Council, in response to the US peace plan.

The Committee decided to disengage with Israel and redefine the relationship with it through the elimination of agreements and the embodiment of the Palestinian state under occupation.



Syria’s New Rulers Declare Crackdown as Tensions Flare in Coastal Area

Syrian opposition forces stop a vehicle as they form a checkpoint after taking control of the port of Tartous in western Syria on December 16, 2024. (AFP)
Syrian opposition forces stop a vehicle as they form a checkpoint after taking control of the port of Tartous in western Syria on December 16, 2024. (AFP)
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Syria’s New Rulers Declare Crackdown as Tensions Flare in Coastal Area

Syrian opposition forces stop a vehicle as they form a checkpoint after taking control of the port of Tartous in western Syria on December 16, 2024. (AFP)
Syrian opposition forces stop a vehicle as they form a checkpoint after taking control of the port of Tartous in western Syria on December 16, 2024. (AFP)

Syria's new authorities on Thursday launched a security crackdown in a coastal region where 14 policemen were killed a day before, vowing to pursue "remnants" of the ousted Bashar al-Assad government accused of the attack, state media reported.

The violence in Tartous province, part of the coastal region that is home to many members of Assad's Alawite sect, has marked the deadliest challenge yet to the new authorities which swept him from power on Dec. 8.

The new administration's security forces launched the operation to "control security, stability, and civil peace, and to pursue the remnants of Assad's militias in the woods and hills" in Tartous' rural areas, state news agency SANA reported.

Members of the Alawite minority wielded huge sway in Assad-led Syria, dominating security forces he used against his opponents during the 13-year-long civil war, and to crush dissent during decades of bloody oppression by his police state.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the former al-Qaeda affiliate which led the opposition campaign that toppled Assad, has repeatedly vowed to protect minority religious groups.

SANA reported that Mohammed Othman, the newly appointed governor of the coastal Latakia region that adjoins the Tartous area, met Alawite sheikhs to "encourage community cohesion and civil peace on the Syrian coast".

HOMS PROTEST

The Syrian information ministry declared a ban on what it described as "the circulation or publication of any media content or news with a sectarian tone aimed at spreading division" among Syrians.

The Syrian civil war took on sectarian dimensions as Assad drew on Shiite militias from across the Middle East, mobilized by his ally Iran, to battle the revolt.

Dissent has also surfaced in the city of Homs, 150 km (90 miles) north of Damascus. State media reported that police imposed an overnight curfew on Wednesday night, following unrest linked to demonstrations that residents said were led by members of the Alawite and Shiite religious communities.

Footage posted on social media on Wednesday from Homs showed a crowd of people scattering, and some of them running, as gunfire was heard. Reuters verified the location. It was not clear who was opening fire.

Assad's long-time Shiite regional ally, Iran, has criticized the course of events in Syria in recent days.

On Sunday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called on Syrian youth to "stand with firm determination against those who have orchestrated and brought about this insecurity".

Khamenei forecast "that a strong and honorable group will also emerge in Syria because today Syrian youth have nothing to lose", calling the country unsafe.

Syria's newly appointed foreign minister, Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, said in a social media post on Tuesday that Iran must respect the will of the Syrian people and Syria's sovereignty and security.

"We warn them against spreading chaos in Syria and we hold them accountable for the repercussions of the latest remarks," he said.

Lebanon said on Thursday it was looking forward to having the best neighborly relations with Syria, in its first official message to the new administration in Damascus.

Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah played a major role propping up Assad during the civil war, before bringing its fighters back to Lebanon over the last year to fight in a bruising war with Israel - a redeployment that weakened Syrian government lines.