Abbas to Trump: May Your House Come to Ruin

TEL AVIV – Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday said that President Donald Trump’s “ultimate deal” for peace was a slap in the face for the Palestinians, cursing out the U.S. chief executive by wishing ruin upon his house. 

“We told Trump we will not accept his project, the ‘deal of the century,’ which has become the ‘slap of the century,’” said Abbas.

“But we will slap back,” he vowed at a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Council in Ramallah.

Abbas slung a popular Arabic curse at Trump in response to the American president’s threat to cut U.S. aid to the Palestinians if they “spread lies about the U.S.”

“May your house come to ruin,” Abbas said, espousing an Arabic epithet.

He also quoted an Egyptian philosopher’s words on the Balfour Declaration – a 1917 British document that promised a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine – saying, “Israel is a colonial project that has nothing to do with Jews.”

“We do not take instructions from anyone, and say ‘no’ to anyone if it is about our destiny, our cause, our country and our people… 1,000 times ‘no,’” he said.

The meeting was convened to discuss the reaction to Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

“Jerusalem is Mecca. Jerusalem is Mecca,” Abbas said.

He again reiterated his view that the U.S. could no longer be a broker for negotiating a peace deal “in light of what they have done.”

Abbas said he “completely rejects” the notion of ceasing salaries to Palestinian terrorists and their families.

The U.S. Congress recently passed a bill cutting a large percentage of aid to the Palestinians until the payments stop.

Abbas also claimed that Abu Dis, a Palestinian town on the outskirts of Jerusalem, was being offered to the Palestinians as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

“What would you want if Jerusalem were to be lost? Would you want to make a state with Abu Dis as its capital?” Abbas asked angrily. “That’s what they are offering us now. Abu Dis.”

In his speech, which lasted over two hours, Abbas also slammed U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley and the American envoy to Israel David Friedman.

“These two personalities are an insult for a self-respecting administration,” Abbas said, adding that he would not meet Friedman any more as a result of the envoy’s statement that there is no “occupation.”