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CSUSB professor comments on Palestinian Authority’s exit from all agreements with U.S and Israel
Press TV
May 20, 2020

David Yaghoubian, CSUSB professor of history, was interviewed for a segment on the Palestinian Authority’s  decision to withdraw from all security agreements and documents of understandings with the United States and Israel. The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas cited the imminent threat of Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank.

Yaghoubian said the Abbas’ announcement was “a very long time coming, and I would say exactly 20 years, because it was in the year 2000 that the parameters of what is known as the Oslo II agreement, or the interim agreement of 1995, were supposed to have been fully implemented.”

By 2000, had the Oslo II agreement been finalized, it would have established a two-state solution that “would have had an independent Palestinian state in 22 percent of historic Palestine,” he said. Yet, “here we are, 20 years later, and with this, basically the coalition of (opposition leader Benny) Gantz and (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu agreeing that sometime soon, potentially July 1, there’s going to be an annexation of 30 percent of the remaining 22 percent of historic Palestine. It was indeed about time the President Mahmoud Abbas broke ties with the Israeli government and made this announcement that the Palestinian Authority will refuse to continue to work with the United States and Israel, who are clearly determined to steal every last bit of Palestinian land.”

 The annexation was also envisaged in U.S. President Donald Trump’s so-called “Deal of the Century” that was unveiled earlier this year. It was also the central promise of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election campaign. The plan has been met with widespread international criticism.

Watch the segment at “Palestinians exit all agreements with U.S. and Israel.”

This news clip and others may be viewed at “In the Headlines.”