Ex-PA minister: Abbas cowed by threat of US aid loss

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was pressured by Washington into entering into US-sponsored peace talks, former Palestinian Authority minister Ziad Abuzayyad told Army Radio Sunday.

“Abbas feels American pressure, and Arab [League] pressure,” said Abuzayyad, a former Palestinian legislator, cabinet minister and negotiator. “The Arab League is telling him, ‘You can’t be seen as responsible for Kerry’s failure.’”

Asked about reports that Abbas faced US threats to withdraw aid if he didn’t enter talks, Abuzayyad told Army Radio, “Of course there was a threat of economic sanctions, as much as $500 million per year. There was pressure related to the end of aid.”

Abuzayyad was a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council from 1996 until 2006 and served on several Palestinian negotiating teams, including during the Oslo peace process in the early 1990s.

Meanwhile, former Shin Bet chief Yaakov Peri, who serves as the science and technology minister in the current government, suggested that if the right wing of the Netanyahu government threatened to bolt over the new talks, Netanyahu would still find a majority in the Knesset for a peace deal.

“If, God forbid, there’s a political crisis, an agreement [with the Palestinians] would have a majority in the Knesset,” Peri said.

Peri was presumably referring to a statement of opposition chair MK Shelly Yachimovich (Labor), who has promised in the past to give Netanyahu the political “maneuvering room” to carry out peace talks.

“The talks are welcome in and of themselves, and will benefit Israel immediately in the international arena,” Yachimovich said Sunday in a meeting with President Shimon Peres at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem.

“But we must remember,” she added, “that the goal is not the process, but attaining a real agreement.”

She promised to continue to support the government in its peace efforts, but added that Labor would not stop criticizing the government’s economic policies.