Mahmoud Abbas, the de facto leader of the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, has told Israeli journalists and business people that his collaboration with Israeli occupation forces is “sacred” and would continue even if the PA forms a “government” backed by the Palestinian military resistance organization Hamas.
“The security relationship … and I say it on air, security coordination is sacred, is sacred. And we’ll continue it whether we disagree or agree over policy,” Abbas told about 300 visiting Israelis at his headquarters in Ramallah this week.
Abbas can be seen making his remarks in a video published by Al-Quds newspaper.
Known euphemistically as “security coordination,” US-financed PA intelligence and security forces work closely with Israeli occupation forces and Shin Bet secret police to suppress any Palestinian resistance to occupation.
This close collaboration between occupier and occupied was recently praised by Martin Indyk, the career Israel lobbyist put in charge of the “peace process” by US President Barack Obama.
The “IDF [Israel Defense Forces] and the Shin Bet now highly appreciate” Abbas’s ongoing work with them, Indyk said at an Israel lobby think tank in Washington earlier this month.
Editor’s note: Abbas has come under recent scrutiny by human rights group Amnesty International for PA security participation in the arrest of BDS activists Zaid Shuaibi, Fajer Harb, Fadi Quran, and Abed al-Fatah Hamayel, during a peaceful protest in Ramallah’s al-Qasaba Theatre on April 12.
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