Yisrael Beiteinu Party chief Avigdor Liberman told JNS on Monday that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas is “a terrorist like any other” and that Jerusalem should treat his organization accordingly.
Liberman was responding to Ramallah’s announcement on Thursday that Abbas had received a draft P.A. constitution from a committee that was formed after France, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia declared their intentions last year to recognize a Palestinian state.
Abbas “advocates political terror,” the Yisrael Beiteinu leader declared, speaking with JNS at a faction meeting held at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem. “If Hamas terrorists operate through classic terror, he [Abbas] operates through political terror,” said Liberman.
The opposition politician noted that the 90-year-old P.A. chief has also repeatedly refused to retract past statements denying the Holocaust.
“Today, the Palestinian Authority fully cooperates with Hamas inside Gaza,” according to Liberman. He added: “Therefore, it is a hostile organization, and it must be treated accordingly.”
Jerusalem opposes the creation of a Palestinian state and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently stated that neither Hamas nor the P.A. can govern Gaza after the war’s conclusion.
According to a report released by an Israeli watchdog group on Sunday, the P.A. has engaged in a years-long deception, pretending to halt its pay-for-slay policy by various means in order to hoodwink donors.
The Palestinian Media Watch report found that Ramallah’s “Martyr’s Fund,” the P.A. program which provides monthly stipends for those imprisoned in Israel for attacks against Jews, is still going strong.
According to PMW’s latest research, the Palestinian Authority paid 23,500 terrorists a total of approximately $315 million in 2025 alone.
Meanwhile, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, on Saturday accused the Palestinian Authority of trying to upgrade its status at the world body through the back door by seeking the presidency of the U.N. General Assembly.
Riyad Mansour is seeking to serve as president of the General Assembly for its 2026–2027 session, which opens on Sept. 8, after being formally nominated by the 22-member Arab Group caucus in late March.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid Party) on Monday slammed the nomination as “an absurdity,” speaking to JNS in Jerusalem following his faction’s weekly Knesset meeting.
“I mean, the P.A. is not a full member of the U.N., and therefore, they cannot hold this position,” declared Lapid, accusing the body of bias.
“The State of Israel is 0.1% of the world’s population, and it’s 60% of the denunciations from the General Assembly of the U.N. This is how biased the U.N. is, and this is why it cannot be taken seriously in the matters of Israel and everything in the Israel-Palestinian conflict,” he told JNS.
Mansour’s nomination is expected to set up a confrontation with the Trump administration, with a U.S. State Department spokesperson telling JNS last year that Washington “opposes the Palestinian Authority’s candidacy for U.N. General Assembly president.”
