PLO calls on PA to renounce recognition of Israel

Terror group's central council calls on Palestinian Authority to renounce 1993 recognition of Israel, following Trump's J'lem declaration.

The Palestine Liberation Organization has called on the Palestinian Authority to renounce its recognition of Israel, a quarter century after the signing of the first Oslo Accords, which established the PA on the basis of mutual recognition.
According to a report by AFP Monday night, the PLO’s 121-member Central Committee adopted a resolution calling on the PA to renounce the 1993 Letters of Mutual Recognition exchanged between Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chief Yasser Arafat.

While the PLO never upheld its pledge to remove the clauses from its national covenant which delegitimize the Jewish state and endorse an armed struggle against it, the letters of recognition nevertheless formed the basis for Israel’s acceptance of the Palestinian Authority’s establishment and operation in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

The Central Council gathered in Ramallah for a two-day conference which began Sunday night, and included opening statements by PA chief Mahmoud Abbas, head of the PLO’s Fatah faction.

During his speech, Abbas blasted President Donald Trump over his historic December 6th recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, while demanding the UK apologize for the 1917 Balfour Declaration which promised a Jewish national home in the historic Land of Israel.

During his address, Abbas also claimed that the Oslo agreements, beginning with the 1993 Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, better known as the Oslo I Accord, were nullified.

"I am saying that Oslo, there is no Oslo," said Abbas. "Israel ended Oslo."

Last Friday, PLO officials told AFP that the terror group’s central council had formed a special committee to weigh various responses to President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem, as well as his threats to cut spending for the Palestinian Authority, as well as to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the UN body which provides benefits to some five million Arabs claiming refugee status as descendants of those who fled Israel during its establishment in 1948.

Ahead of Sunday’s meeting, Abbas praised a series of violent protests and attacks on Israeli civilians and security personnel following Trump’s December 6th declaration, hailing the incidents as the beginning of a new “uprising” against the Jewish state.
At the close of the conference Monday night, the PLO Central Committee voted to suspend its recognition of Israel until the Jewish state “recognizes the State of Palestine”, retreats from eastern Jerusalem, and halts all construction in Judea and Samaria.