Al-Akhbar Newspaper Reveals:

MbS Offered Abbas $10bn to Accept Trump's deal

Date: 01 May 2019 - 22:12

News ID: ۶۵۴۸۸

LONDON (Dispatches) -- Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman offered Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas $10 billion to accept a controversial U.S.-backed "peace” plan, Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar has reported.
Abbas rejected the offer, saying supporting U.S. President Donald Trump's "deal of the century" would be "the end of his political life", the paper reported, citing leaked diplomatic reports based on conversations between the two leaders.
According to Al-Akhbar, the reports were written by Jordanian envoy to Ramallah Khaled al-Shawabkeh and were based on briefings with a number of Palestinian officials in Ramallah.
The reports date back to December 2017 and January 2018 in the aftermath of Trump’s controversial declaration that the U.S. considered Jerusalem Al-Quds to be the so-called capital of the occupying regime of Israel and planned to move its embassy there. They were written by Shawabkeh following discussions with Palestinian officials.
In a January 4, 2018 report cited by Al-Akhbar, Shawabkeh wrote to the Jordanian foreign ministry and said that Abbas was "upset” by several offers he had received during a visit to Saudi Arabia the previous month, but had refused to discuss them with Palestinian officials.
One of the Saudi offers, according to the Jordanian's report, was to exchange Palestinian recognition of Trump's deal for $10 billion to assist West Bank authorities and refugee resettlement, along with "unlimited financial and political support”.
According to Al-Akhbar, Muhammad bin Salman (MbS) asked Abbas how much his entourage's annual budget was. "I am not a prince to have an entourage," Abbas reportedly responded.
"How much does the PA and its ministers need?” bin Salman then said.
"One billion U.S. dollars," Abbas replied, to which MbS was said to have responded: "I will give you $10 billion over ten years if you accept the deal.”
In an earlier report, dated December 26, 2017, Shawabkeh writes that bin Salman told Abbas during his visit to Saudi Arabia that "the Americans are ready to offer the Palestinians the land on which they live”.
The crown prince reportedly added that Saudi Arabia, along with other Arab countries, had been asked by the Americans to provide the Palestinians with financial support to launch projects in the West Bank that would lead to economic prosperity.
The projects would also, he said, see the expansion of the West Bank's Area B, where the PA and the Zionist regime hold administrative and military control, and Area C, which constitutes 60 percent of the territory, and is exclusively under Israeli military authority.
"Saudi Arabia will support the PA with more than four billion in principle,” the envoy wrote, citing conversations between Abbas and MbS.
Shawabkeh mentioned in his report that Abbas told bin Salman that he could not accept any concessions with regards to settlements, and Al-Quds, Abbas, however, believed that the Americans would not provide any written proposals, but would adopt a "Balfour-style tactic”.
According to the Jordanian envoy, Abbas said that the PA would dismantle itself if it became subject to any pressure from any side, and would "hold Israel responsible for managing the affairs of occupied territories".
Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner said last month that the U.S. administration would reveal its long-awaited deal in June after Zionist PM Benjamin Netanyahu forms a coalition cabinet, which is expected to be finalized in the coming weeks.
Palestinian leaders have vehemently denounced key points of the plan that have been leaked. They include recognizing Al-Quds as the so-called capital of Israel, offering the East Al-Quds suburb of Abu Dis as the capital of a future Palestinian state, taking refugees' right of return off the table, and drastically cutting the number of registered refugees.
Saeb Erekat, the veteran Palestinian negotiator, told Middle East Eye in June that the deal of the century was not a deal and was already being implemented on the ground.
"If there's any plan, this is being implemented on the ground: with moving the US embassy to occupied Jerusalem, withdrawing support for the two-state solution, cutting funds to UNRWA and, eventually, trying to normalize the Israeli apartheid in Palestine," Erekat said.