PLO Factions Seek to Postpone National Dialogue

 A delegation from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine arrives at the headquarters of the Palestinian Dialogue in Cairo in January 2021. (AFP)
A delegation from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine arrives at the headquarters of the Palestinian Dialogue in Cairo in January 2021. (AFP)
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PLO Factions Seek to Postpone National Dialogue

 A delegation from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine arrives at the headquarters of the Palestinian Dialogue in Cairo in January 2021. (AFP)
A delegation from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine arrives at the headquarters of the Palestinian Dialogue in Cairo in January 2021. (AFP)

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) factions want to postpone the second round of the national dialogue in Cairo, scheduled for March, said member of the PLO’s Executive Committee Ahmed Majdalani.

In comments to the Voice of Palestine radio station, Majdalani said discussions are ongoing with PLO political forces that took part in the latest Cairo talks to postpone the upcoming round until after the legislative elections, scheduled for May 22.

He pointed out that any talks now would be “hypothetical” because there are no fundamental issues to be discussed.

According to the first round’s final communique, factions agreed to head to Cairo in March for another round of talks in a bid to settle thorny issues.

They still need to agree on the principles and mechanisms by which the formation of the new National Council will be completed, and bolster the national program.

Hamas, meanwhile, insists on reaching an understanding about the National Council elections before holding the legislative elections.

It wants to ensure that the elections will proceed as scheduled and without an agreed-upon National Council elections, informed sources told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“Hamas was aiming to hold simultaneous elections,” they added, but due to the intervention by regional countries that provided guarantees, it agreed on the gradual elections, provided that they all be covered in a single decree setting their dates.



Israeli Likud Party Ministers Urge Netanyahu to Annex West Bank

Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
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Israeli Likud Party Ministers Urge Netanyahu to Annex West Bank

Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)

Cabinet ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party called on Wednesday for Israel to annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank before the Knesset recesses at the end of the month.

They issued a petition ahead of Netanyahu's meeting next week with US President Donald Trump, where discussions are expected to center on a potential 60-day Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas.

The petition was signed by 15 cabinet ministers and Amir Ohana, speaker of the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

There was no immediate response from the prime minister's office. Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, long a confidant of Netanyahu, did not sign the petition. He has been in Washington since Monday for talks on Iran and Gaza.

"We ministers and members of Knesset call for applying Israeli sovereignty and law immediately on Judea and Samaria," they wrote, using the biblical names for the West Bank captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Their petition cited Israel's recent achievements against both Iran and Iran's allies and the opportunity afforded by the strategic partnership with the US and support of Trump.

It said the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel demonstrated that the concept of Jewish settlement blocs alongside the establishment of a Palestinian state poses an existential threat to Israel.

"The task must be completed, the existential threat removed from within, and another massacre in the heart of the country must be prevented," the petition stated.

Most countries regard Jewish settlements in the West Bank, many of which cut off Palestinian communities from one another, as a violation of international law.

With each advance of Israeli settlements and roads, the West Bank becomes more fractured, further undermining prospects for a contiguous land on which Palestinians could build a sovereign state long envisaged in Middle East peacemaking.

Israel's pro-settler politicians have been emboldened by the return to the White House of Trump, who has proposed Palestinians leave Gaza, a suggestion widely condemned across the Middle East and beyond.