Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas met with CIA Director William Burns in Ramallah on Sunday, amid heightened tensions following two Palestinian terrorist attacks in Jerusalem.
Abbas briefed Burns on the “dangerous developments and the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people, and the importance of urgent intervention to pressure the Israeli occupation government to stop its unilateral measures and to abide by the signed agreements,” according to the official Palestinian Wafa news agency.
The P.A. head further “stressed the necessity of restoring the political horizon on the basis of international legitimacy, in order to achieve security and stability for all in the region, and for the Palestinian people to achieve their freedom and independence in their state with [eastern] Jerusalem as its capital on the 1967 borders,” said the report.
On Saturday, a Palestinian terrorist shot and wounded an Israeli father and son near the entrance to the City of David National Park adjacent to Jerusalem’s Old City, before being neutralized by an off-duty IDF officer.
On Friday evening, seven people were killed and several others wounded when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire at passersby outside a synagogue in Jerusalem’s Neve Yaakov neighborhood. The assailant was shot and killed by security forces.
The Palestinian leadership said on Saturday that it holds the “Israeli occupation government fully responsible for the dangerous escalation” following the attacks.
The P.A. blamed Israel for the deaths of “31 martyrs” this month, ongoing “colonial settlement practices,” house demolitions, land annexation, arrests, “ethnic cleansing and apartheid,” the “desecration” of Islamic and Christian holy sites and the “storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
In response, Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli described the P.A. on Sunday as antisemitic and an enemy of the Jewish state.
“I see the Palestinian Authority as a neo-Nazi entity in its essence and outlook,” Chikli told Ynet. “We still do not have any peace agreement with it. It is an enemy that is antisemitic to its core, and we need to examine alternatives.”
Chikli noted that P.A. law stipulates that “the more Jews you kill, the more money you’ll receive,” adding, “The P.A. is the source of terror.”
The Israeli Security Cabinet decided earlier this month to withhold taxes and tariffs collected on behalf of the P.A., in an amount equal to that which Ramallah paid to terrorists and their families in 2022 as part of its “pay-for-slay” policy.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was slated to land in Israel on Monday, ahead of a planned meeting with Abbas in Ramallah on Tuesday.
