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AMMAN: The visit by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the White House Wednesday has done little to raise Palestinian expectations for progress in the half-a-century-old conflict.
Politicians, academics and artists interviewed by Arab News were pessimistic about any change in course by the Donald Trump administration.
Some have argued that upholding the status quo might itself be a sign of progress in today’s highly pro-Israel Washington. Both the White House and Congress seem to be fiercely pro-Israel and the only discernible differences between them are in tone rather than content.
Even the fact that the Palestinian president has been invited to the White House is seen by some as a double-edged sword.
“Abbas would do well if he can get out of Washington without being forced to make concessions,” said a senior Palestinian official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Abbas’ advance team included chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, who is also the secretary-general of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) executive committee. It also included Majed Faraj, the head of the General Intelligence Service, and Muhammad Mustafa, the deputy finance minister and head of the Palestinian Investment Fund.
The three were hosted in Washington by the new director of the PLO mission in Washington, Hussam Zomlot, who took on his position in the US capital on April 1. Zomlot, a close adviser to Abbas, was elected last November to the powerful Revolutionary Council of Fatah, receiving the sixth highest votes to the 100-strong policy making body.
Zomlot refused to comment on the preparations for the summit.
“Things are very sensitive here and we are consciously being tight-lipped,” he told Arab News.
Oraib Rantawi, director of the Al-Quds Center for Political Studies in Amman, believes that if any Palestinian-US summit is to be successful, the outcome would be based on several issues.
“They are 1967 borders, East Jerusalem as part of the occupied territories, serious negotiations (on a) settlement freeze, a declared timeline and a clear reference to the talks,” he told Arab News by e-mail.
Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad, the head of Fatah’s International Relations Department, placed the onus on what Palestinians expect from the US president.
“President Trump will have to clarify whether he is supporting a real solution that will end the occupation and make it clear whether the US Embassy will be moved to Jerusalem or not — such an action will affect the peace process and the attempts to revive it dramatically,” he told Arab News.
Palestinian legislative representative Bernard Sabella is concerned that Trump will advocate a regional rather than a narrow Palestinian plan. Speaking to Arab News, the representative of Jerusalem in the Palestinian Legislative Council said that Trump’s priority will be addressing Israel’s needs.
“He will push President Abbas to declare an end to hostilities and to act pragmatically so as to help restart the stalled peace talks.”
Sabella does, however, believe that Palestinians are much more interested in the ongoing prisoners’ hunger strike than the meetings in Washington.
Fadwa Barghouti, a Palestinian lawyer and wife of the hunger strike’s leader, told journalists Sunday that parallel to the meeting in Washington, Palestinians will be protesting Israeli prison conditions throughout the occupied territories.
“We are hoping that a clear and loud statement will be heard from Palestinian protesters about the need to respond to the prisoners’ humanitarian demands,” she said.
Whether the Palestinian-US summit will be successful depends on the direction that the Trump administration takes. Trump has stated, both as a candidate and as president that he hopes to oversee the “ultimate deal” in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
In March, he sent his envoy Jason Greenblatt to the region. The envoy met separately with Israeli and Palestinian leaders and he also attended the Arab Summit held in Jordan.
Some Palestinians are worried about the so-called Greenblatt plan, which, according to Palestinian sources, mostly reflects the Israeli demands of the need for Palestinians to recognize Israel as the homeland of Jews and to stop supporting families of Palestinian prisoners.
In response to the US-Israeli demands, Palestinians have dug up the 1948 position of the Truman administration in which the US president refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. As to the financial support to the families of Palestinian prisoners, the Palestinian team has gathered information that shows that Israel itself continues to provide stipends from its social security department to families of prisoners who are Israeli citizens or residents of East Jerusalem.
Skepticism toward the upcoming talks has also been voiced by many intellectuals and artists.
Kamel Elbasha, a well- known Palestinian actor, told Arab News that he has long lost interest in political issues.
“The reality is that everything is in the hands of politicians who are in the service of Israel … Any international meeting that Israel has any connection to will serve its racist policies and perpetuate its terrorizing presence,” he said.
A professor at Birzeit University told Arab News that he sees no reason for Israel to want to be involved in any serious negotiations.
“Why should they? They are creating facts on the ground and no one is forcing them to do anything about ending the occupation,” said the professor who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The challenges facing Abbas are not easy as he has to achieve enough in his meeting with Trump to reinstall trust in talks that most Palestinians have lost hope in.