PA prime minster: We’ll ‘review’ all agreements with Israel

The PA says it will review all agreements made with Israel over the last 25 years. 

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said Saturday that two of the top bodies in his government would be reviewing all agreements the PA has signed with Israel over the last 25 years.

The Palestine National Council and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee will take action because “it is impossible to continue to recognize Israel as long as it does not recognize us,” he said.

He also claimed that Israel wanted to “falsify our narrative about Al-Aqsa in order to make the Jewish narrative dominant.” This would be a falsification of history, he said.

Al-Aqsa is the Arab name for the Temple Mount, which is the holiest site in Judaism, and the location of the First and Second Temple.

Shtayyeh made similar threats in April when speaking to a Norwegian diplomat in Ramallah of the American peace plan to be unveiled next month. Then, too, he said that the Palestinian leadership would reexamine all areas of its relationship with the Jewish state, whether political, legal, economic or in the security arena.

The PA’s steadily worsening financial situation has also motivated such calls. Just a week before Shtayyeh’s statement, PA Vice Chairman Mahmoud Aloul said that if Israel doesn’t resume all its payments to the PA, “The leadership plans to retract recognition of Israel and cease coordination on security matters with the occupation’s forces.”

Israel recently passed a law that withholds tax money from the PA to offset money the PA pays to terrorists who carried out attacks on Jewish civilians. This led the PA to refuse all money from Israel, creating a severe economic crisis.

Senior Palestinian officials, including President Mahmoud Abbas, have periodically talked of rescinding recognition of Israel over the years. The threats grew especially strident when the United States moved its Embassy to Jerusalem last May, recognizing the city as the capital of Israel.