Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas lashed out against the United States, Israel and Hamas in a speech to the PLO Executive Committee in Ramallah on Sunday, saying that Hamas' insistence on maintaining exclusive control over the Gaza Strip is playing into the hands of the U.S. and Israel.
"The era in which we now find ourselves is the most dangerous for the Palestinian people," Abbas said.
"There will be no Palestinian state established on temporary borders, no Palestinian state without Gaza, and certainly no separate Palestinian political entity in Gaza.
"Seeing as there is no more room to maneuver toward a solution, the time has come to implement the decisions we have reached on the issue of relations with Israel, the Americans and Hamas," he said.
Abbas said the Palestinians were facing difficult and important decisions, but did not go into detail. Instead, he rebuked the Hamas leadership for what he called its "shameful" handling of the Palestinian plight.
"Why do they look on from the sidelines at a sinking ship and instead of helping bring people together, they boycott the PLO Executive Committee conference?" he said. "If this is Hamas' position, they should give up their public Palestinian role."
Abbas, who fears that the U.S. is planning a proposal that would offer limited statehood in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip separately from Abbas' Fatah-controlled PA, accused Hamas of serving U.S. interests by refusing to relinquish control over Gaza.
Hamas routed Fatah from Gaza in a violent coup in 2007.
Abbas said Sunday that by refusing to cede control of Gaza, Hamas was "accepting the thoughts of the enemy, who plans to have a mini-state in Gaza and autonomy in the West Bank."
Abbas also had a message for U.S. President Donald Trump, starting with an Arabic curse against Trump's home – a curse Abbas has unleashed before, most notably in a two-hour address to the PLO Central Council in January.
Abbas said the Palestinians would not accept Trump's "deal of the century," the Trump administration's long-awaited outline to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"What remains of Trump's deal of the century?" Abbas said.
"He canceled the Jerusalem issue when he moved his embassy to the city; he also canceled the issue of Palestinian [right of] return when he closed UNRWA [the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees] and he had the unbelievable nerve to announce that the number of Palestinian refugees does not surpass 40,000. May his house be destroyed – 40,000 refugees?
"We will not accept any deal in which east Jerusalem is not the capital of Palestine. Our enemies want us to tear the Palestinian state to shreds – one government in Gaza, a separate government in the West Bank, and the capital of Palestine in Abu Dis. With all due respect to Abu Dis, all of the territory in east Jerusalem conquered in 1967 is the Palestinian capital, and we will not cede one inch."
Abbas also lashed out at Israel, claiming that the Palestinians were the original inhabitants of the land.
"We are the Canaanites, the legal owners of the land. All of the settlements are illegal, and we will not agree to any settlement or Jewish presence inside Palestinian territory," he said.
