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Palestinian Authority Seeking To Improve Ties With Iran

by TheTower.org Staff |

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has sent a envoy to Tehran in hopes of boosting ties with Iran, The Times of Israel reported today.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas sent Ahmad Majdalani, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, to Iran, where he met with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Majdalani told Palestinian radio on Monday that he signed a cooperation agreement between Iran and “Palestine,” with the two sides forming a “high committee” to discuss political, economic and social exchange.

“We discussed the Palestinian situation with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. He stressed Iran’s support for the attempts of the Palestinian leadership to end the Palestinian divide and form a unity government,” Majdalani told Mawtini radio station on Monday, noting that he carried a letter from Abbas to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. …

In 2012, Abbas declined an invitation to visit Tehran by then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He later met with Ahmadinejad in Cairo in February 2013, thanking the Iranian president for supporting the Palestinians’ November 2012 UN statehood bid.

Ties between the Palestinian Authority and Iran have been strained since the PA gave up armed resistance against Israel. But last year, Jibril Rajoub, thought by many to be a potential successor to Abbas, visited Tehran and expressed hope that his Fatah movement could develop stronger ties with the Iranian government.

Late last year, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweeted a plan for eliminating Israel that included arming the residents of the West Bank and Gaza to fight against Israel. The week before the nuclear deal with Iran was signed, former Iranian president Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani said that Israel feared the the deal because it would strengthen Iran, and that one day Israel would be wiped off the map. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps released a statement prior to the signing of the deal that the destruction of Israel was “Muslims’ top priority.”

Last year, Abbas scuttled American-sponsored peace talks with Israel when he signed a unity agreement with the terrorist organization Hamas, which is dedicated to Israel’s destruction.

[Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash 90 ]

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