Abbas Slams U.S. Embassy As ‘Settlement Outpost,’ Repeats Lie of No Jewish Ties to Israel

TEL AVIV – Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday slammed the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem as a “settlement outpost,” and vowed that the Palestinians will not take part in peace talks brokered by the Americans “in any way, shape or form.” He also repeated the lie that Jews have no ties to the land of Israel.

Abbas spoke at an emergency meeting in Ramallah following the inauguration of the new embassy, which he called “a new settlement outpost, just like the Israeli settlements,” and an “assault on our sovereignty, an assault on our established rights.”

“Palestine is for the Palestinians and is not, as the Jews claim, the land of their ancestors,” he said.

The U.S. embassy was relocated from Tel Aviv to the Arnona neighborhood of Jerusalem.

Abbas also condemned the IDF’s response to violent riots near the Gaza border, which saw 55 Palestinians killed, according to Hamas’s Gaza Health Ministry.

“We call on the international community, and especially the Arab and Muslim states, to act and act swiftly” against the “massacres being perpetrated against our peaceful people,” Abbas said.

He also called for a three-day general strike over the deaths.

On Monday, the PA announced it would petition the International Criminal Court with a war crimes complaint against Israel for settlement construction on land claimed by the Palestinians for their future state.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, who announced the decision, accused the Trump administration of being “based on lies” and added that President Trump had sabotaged any hopes for peace.

“We also witnessed today a ceremony of the prime minister of Israel and the administration of President Trump burying the peace process, burying the two-state solution, killing the hope in the minds of the people of the Middle East as a whole with the possibility of peace,” Erekat said.

Earlier, he blasted the US administration ahead of the embassy move, saying Trump had violated a promise to hold off on moving the embassy to give peace talks a chance.

Erekat said the Trump administration had “become part of the problem, not part of the solution,” inversely echoing comments made by Trump’s son-in-law and adviser in charge of overseeing the peace proposal, Jared Kushner, who, in his remarks at the embassy dedication, said that those provoking violence on the border were “part of the problem and not part of the solution.”

Erekat called the White House officials “real estate dealers.”