Abbas reportedly rejected a request from Trump to speak by phone

Backing Palestinians, J Street rejects Trump’s peace “sham.”

By World Israel News Staff

Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas has rejected a request from U.S. President Donald Trump to speak by phone, an official said Monday, according to the Turkish Anadolu news agency.

“Trump made the request a few days ago, said the official, who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media,” said Anadolu in its report datelined Ramallah, the PA headquarters city.

“Abbas has announced on several occasions his refusal to accept the U.S. plan, as it does not address the issues of Jerusalem, refugees, and borders,” the report continues, referring to the American peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians.

The PA announced in December 2017 that it was breaking off diplomatic contacts with Washington after Trump announced his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The president noted at the time that recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish State did not mean that the administration was setting the final boundaries of the city.

Like the PA, the J Street organization is rejecting the U.S. peace effort.

Even as the leaders of the largest factions in Israel’s parliament – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and MK Beny Gantz – are in Washington to meet with Trump on furthering peace, J Street is waging war on the president’s peace plan.

“As Trump prepares to release his Peace Sham and pave the way for West Bank [Judea and Samaria] annexation, it’s clear that the next president will reject his destructive policies and genuinely push for Israeli-Palestinian peace,” J Street tweeted.

“2020 [Democratic presidential] candidates are making clear that their administrations would oppose unilateral land grabs,” it writes.

“Don’t call it a ‘peace plan,'” J Street says on its website.

J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami calls it “a plan to enshrine the Israeli settler movement’s agenda as the foreign policy of the United States.”

J Street calls itself “the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans fighting for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

However, a wing within the organization on college campuses reportedly has shown support for the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Divestment. Sanctions) movement.

“We do not advocate for or support any boycott, divestment or sanctions initiative whatsoever,” J Street argues on its website.

Nevertheless, “campus chapters of J Street…have worked with the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign,” The Washington Free Beacon reported in 2018.