Israel, PA deny bid to postpone Netanyahu-Abbas meeting

Senior Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials on Monday denied a report in a Lebanese newspaper that Jerusalem had sought to postpone a meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PA President Mahmoud Abbas on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, currently taking place in New York.

According to Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar newspaper, based on a PA document (in Arabic), Netanyahu and Abbas were due to meet following conversations between the two (and Israeli President Reuven Rivlin) after the July 31 terror attack in Duma in which three members of the Dawabsha family were killed.

But the paper said, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Major-General Yoav Mordechai surprised the PA’s Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh when he told them in a September 9 meeting that Netanyahu wanted to postpone the meeting with Abbas until after the UNGA, as per a request by the Americans.

Mordechai on Monday denied that he had asked to delay the meeting, calling the report “lies, and that’s an understatement.”

Hamdallah also denied the report, the Hebrew-language Walla website said Monday, claiming that the meeting with Mordechai had not taken place at all.

“This is a false declaration whose purpose is to harm the Palestinian leadership,” Hamdallah’s office said in a statement. “We are considering legal action against the newspaper.” The statement said that Hamdallah had even been on his way to Paris on September 11 — although the meeting reportedly took place two days prior.

The flurry of reports and statements came after the Haaretz daily reported on Sunday that US Secretary of State John Kerry pressured the Palestinians to delay any Abbas-Netanyahu meeting, and Abbas complied. Palestinian officials said Kerry sought to ensure American involvement in any peace bid, and therefore asked Abbas to postpone the meeting, that report said.

The State Department denied the Haaretz story and said the Palestinian account was a misrepresentation aimed at deflecting attention away from Abbas’s reluctance to meet.

Mordechai on Monday also denied that Israel had given the go ahead for the construction of new Palestinian cities in the West Bank, saying that while the Palestinians had made such as proposal, it was still in the planning stages and had not yet been approved.

The Lebanese report included a claim that the Palestinians have been sending messages to Israel on the contents of Abbas’s speech at the UN on Wednesday.

The newspaper said that Abbas had met with former Israeli minister Meir Sheetrit in Ramallah, and asked Sheetrit to convey to Netanyahu that the Palestinians did not intend to escalate matters with unilateral decisions, but did plan to issue sharp statements.

Sources in Ramallah said Monday that Abbas does not intend to announce the termination of the Oslo Accords or to declare Palestine an occupied state during his speech, contrary to previous reports.

The sources told The Times of Israel, however, that Abbas does plan to give Israel a “deadline” — as yet unspecified — for “meeting its obligations” lest the Palestinians go ahead and announce the Oslo Accords null and void.

Under the 1993 agreement, the Palestinian Authority administers civil and security control over the West Bank’s major cities, which are delineated as Area A. Area B is under PA civil control, but with joint security control with Israel, while Area C — the bulk of the West Bank — is under Israeli control.

The possible announcement comes after weeks of reports in the Palestinian press that Abbas was prepared to drop a “bombshell” during his UN speech.

Earlier this month, Netanyahu said he was willing to meet Abbas “right now” to resume peace negotiations without preconditions.

Secret contacts between Netanyahu and Abbas have been taking place for several months, according to recent reports, including in The Times of Israel. Those reports have been denied by both the Prime Minister’s Office and Erekat. The prime minister will address the General Assembly on Thursday, a day after Abbas.