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The Palestinian Authority may reconsider the diplomatic agreements it currently has with Israel, given what it calls Israel’s repeated violations of them, senior Palestinian officials said Monday.
Hana Amira, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, told the Ma’an news agency Monday that the PA is weighing whether to continue its security and economic cooperation with Israel or instead spark a "popular uprising" against the Israeli occupation.
The PA will also explore the possibility of again approaching the UN Security Council and General Assembly to obtain some form of official recognition as a state.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas has been saying recently that he plans to contact Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ask for clarifications of Israel’s positions on a variety of issues. If the answers are not satisfactory, they plan to return to the UN bodies.
Last Friday, Abbas told an Egyptian television station that he planned to make "a dramatic announcement" within 10 days, given that the diplomatic talks with Israel had failed.
It isn’t clear what options Abbas has. One could be resigning from his position as PA president and dissolving his government. But senior officials, among them Amira, said it was unlikely Abbas would take such a step.
Another senior PLO official, Qais Abdul-Karim, said that Abbas does not plan to violate the signed agreements with Israel, but to merely reevaluate them. Without any diplomatic progress on the horizon, he said, the PA cannot continue to fulfill its obligations.
Fatah and Hamas, meanwhile, are having difficulties overcoming disagreements over forming a new joint government. The main problem seems to be disputes within the Hamas leadership over whether or not to allow Abbas to be appointed the prime minister of the new unity government.
Egyptian intelligence officials are trying to mediate between the parties and the talks between them are continuing.