Abbas to UN Security Council: Trump plan ‘legitimizes what is illegal,’ strengthens ‘apartheid regime’

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas tells a UN Security Council meeting that US President Donald Trump’s peace plan annuls the Palestinians’ right to “self-determination, freedom and independence in our own state.”

“It legitimizes what is illegal: settlement and annexation of Palestinian land.”

He says it “should not be considered as an international reference for negotiations.”

“This is an Israeli-American preemptive plan in order to put an end to the question of Palestine,” he says. “It was rejected by us because it considers that East Jerusalem is no longer under the sovereignty of the state of Palestine… It leaves Palestine fragmented… It would put an end to the question of Palestinian refugees” and would “end all basis for a peace plan…”

“This plan will not bring peace or stability to the region, and therefore we will not accept this plan. We will confront its application on the ground.”

Abbas said the deal “strengthening the apartheid regime.” It “rewards the occupation instead of holding it accountable for all the crimes it perpetrated against our people and our land.”

Holding up the map of Israel and a potential Palestinian state in the Trump plan, he says it leaves a Palestine looking “like a Swiss cheese” and that nobody would accept it.