"The steps taken by Abbas need to sound the alarm in every country that helps the Palestinians financially via the PA's institutions. They want to believe they are granting aid to the Palestinian people, but essentially they are sustaining the PLO and solidifying Fatah's hegemony," says attorney Maurice Hirsch, the head of legal strategies for Palestinian Media Watch and the editor of a new report.
While numerous international bodies and foreign governments denounced the Israeli move, Washington has yet to articulate a clear position on the matter.
While the tiny Gaza surfing scene is a world away from the famed beaches of California, Australia, or South Africa, it has clung on since 2007, when Israeli surfer Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz brought 15 surfboards into Gaza after seeing a film of two Palestinians practicing on a makeshift board.
If the initiative indeed comes to fruition, it would be a historic move as Palestinians, for the first time, would be able to fly abroad for vacation through Israel rather than Jordan.
UN Watch report says the PA and Hamas routinely torture human-rights activists, women, members of the LGBT community, political opponents, “collaborators” with Israel, and Palestinians who sell land to Jews.
After visiting Israel and the Palestinian Authority, US President Joe Biden will set off for Saudi Arabia, where he will attempt to persuade Riyadh to increase oil output.
Palestinian Authority officials say the Jerusalem Declaration and its accompaniments have sullied the mood and atmosphere in Ramallah ahead of Us President Joe Biden's visit Friday.
Locals appear far more concerned with the financial distress COVID caused to a city whose main industry is tourism than with the arrival of the US president, who they say is coming "for the Israelis, not for us."
Speakers at the conference held at Al-Umma University in Gaza assessed that after the Ukraine war, the US is likely to lose its global hegemony, leading to multipolar world order.
PA foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki's diplomatic adviser tells Israel Hayom that US President Joe Biden's upcoming visit is an opportunity to change the diplomatic situation: "Our hand is extended to peace, Abbas has not given up."