Building Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem is a cancer,” Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday, the day before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to arrive with another load of diplomatic muscle.
His description upstages the United Nations,which calls 600,000 Jews in Judea, Samaria, and in eastern, southern and northern Jerusalem “illegal,” and Abbas outdoes President Barack Obama, who considers them “illegitimate.”
“We will not remain patient as the settlement cancer spreads, especially in (east) Jerusalem, and we will use our right as a U.N. observer state by taking political, diplomatic and legal action to stop it,” Abbas said in a speech in Ramallah to mark the 49th anniversary of the founding of the Fatah party.
He also placed a wreath at the grave of Yasser Arafat, Abbas’ predecessor who perpetuated evil by turning terror into criteria for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Abbas pulled no punches in his comments and did his best to show Kerry that he could care less about the Secretary of State’s rules of the game not to threaten to suggest going to the United Nations in an end-run around current nine-month discussion with Israel.
Abbas all of a sudden pulled Gaza into the picture and conveniently omitted recent escalation of terrorist attacks from the Hamas-controlled area.
“We have entered negotiations amid Israeli escalation on all fronts — the Israeli army steps up its hostilities against the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank, leading to the killing of dozens of citizens in the last few months,” he said.