PA submits US entry applications, testing plan to ban Abbas from UN confab — officials

The Palestinian Authority has submitted dozens of visa applications for entry into the US, testing Washington’s plan to again bar PA President Mahmoud Abbas from attending the UN General Assembly later this month, a US official and a Palestinian official told The Times of Israel on Monday.

While a US official told The Times of Israel last month that President Donald Trump’s administration planned to bar Abbas’s entry for the second year in a row, a Palestinian official said Ramallah was told it could still submit applications for adjudication.

Abbas is scheduled to speak on September 24, the same day as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But last year, Abbas gave his speech via video link due to the entry ban, which Washington said was in response to purported steps taken by the PA to undermine prospects for peace.

Washington didn’t elaborate at the time on its specific grievances with Ramallah, and the move was seen as part of an effort to undermine a conference that France and Saudi Arabia were hosting ahead of the General Assembly’s high-level week that was aimed at promoting a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

PA officials are also seeking meetings with American counterparts while stateside later this month, but that will at least partially depend on whether the entry ban is lifted.

Asked for comment on the matter, an aide to Abbas didn’t respond.

A State Department spokesperson said: “The Trump administration is protecting our nation and its citizens by upholding the highest standards of national security and public safety through our visa process.“

“As a general matter, we have no comment on Department actions with respect to specific cases due to visa record confidentiality,” the spokesperson added.

The Trump administration has often sought to sideline the PA from its engagements on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, frequently accusing it of corruption, while exerting limited political capital in thwarting a host of Israeli measures that have brought Ramallah to the brink of financial collapse.

But the US did seek the PA’s assistance in passing a UN Security Council resolution granting the Board of Peace control over the postwar management of Gaza through the end of Trump’s term.

Hoping to reverse the entry ban, Abbas asked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan if he could speak to Trump about the issue, a Palestinian official told The Times of Israel last month.

Erdogan heeded the request, which Abbas made during his visit to Ankara last month, the Palestinian official said, touting the Turkish leader’s assistance.

Erdogan subsequently held a phone call with Trump, who has repeatedly called the Turkish president his “good friend.”

Asked for comment on the matter, a UN official expressed hope to The Times of Israel that the US will honor its obligations as the body’s host country to allow the travel of delegation heads who intend to address the United Nations.

The State Department appeared to foreshadow the entry ban in a statement last month, telling The Times of Israel: ”The Foreign Missions Act authorizes the secretary of state to impose restrictions or conditions on the travel within the United States of foreign mission members.”

The US defended the policy last year by noting that it still maintained the visas of the Palestinian UN mission’s members.

Those handful of Palestinian officials have been allowed to remain in New York, even as the Trump administration issued a travel ban on all PA passport holders last December.

In light of the ban, the UN General Assembly had to pass a special resolution allowing Abbas to address the body virtually. A similar decision will have to be adopted this year if the US maintains its ban.