RIYADH: GCC Secretary-General Nayef Al Hajraf has demanded an apology from Palestinian leaders for remarks rebuking the UAE over normalisation of ties with Israel.
In a statement released by the GCC on Monday, Al Hajraf denounced what he called the “language of incitement and threats” by Palestinians during a meeting of the heads of Palestinian factions last week.
“The secretary-general condemned the falsehoods questioning the historic stance of Gulf nations in support of the rights of Palestinians, calling on responsible Palestinian leaders who participated in that meeting, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, to apologise for these violations and provocative and false statements, which are against the reality of the relations between the states of the Council and the brotherly Palestinian people,” the GCC said in a statement on Monday.
Remote conference
The chiefs of Palestinian factions, including Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), had held a remote conference last week between Beirut and the West Bank city of Ramallah in a push to voice a unified Palestinian position on recent events.
The meeting was a rare show of unity between the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, which has limited self-rule over the occupied West Bank, and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.
Joint statement
A joint statement from the conference stressed Palestinians’ right to self-determination in all of the occupied territories and denounced normalisation with Israel, but did not mention Gulf states or the UAE.
However, during the televised proceedings of the meeting, several Palestinian officials were explicit in their criticism of Abu Dhabi.
For example, the PFLP’s Abu Ahmad Fouad called for kicking normalising states out of the Arab League, urging a Palestinian boycott of such countries and calling on their people to “take a stance” against their governments.
“If you don’t want to support us, don’t stand against us and support our enemy; that’s the bare minimum,” Fouad said. “This UAE situation should not pass easily.”