Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chairman and Fatah faction leader Mahmoud Abbas is reportedly planning to ask French President Francois Holland to formally recognize the Palestinian Authority as a sovereign independent nation next week when they meet in Paris.
Abbas, who also still heads the faltering Palestinian Authority unity government, is trying to raise similar support from other European countries as well. However, he doesn’t even have the support of Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls Gaza, his erstwhile partner in the “unity” government that he himself has threatened to dissolve.
The effort comes in advance of the PLO chairman’s planned attempt to seek a resolution from the United Nations Security Council to end Israel’s control over all territory that was won during the 1967 Six Day War.
Among the areas Abbas hopes to claim are numerous neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Israel’s holy capital, as well as the regions of Judea and Samaria, significant parts of which are inhabited by some 400,000 Jews.
A proposal that was reportedly advanced by Egypt — but later denied by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi — would have provided the PA with a tract of land five times the size of Gaza adjacent to the southern enclave for a new sovereign state. In addition, the plan would have offered autonomous status under Israel to existing PA-controlled cities in Judea and Samaria.
Abbas rejected the plan.