Palestinian ambassador to Paris, Salman
Al-Harfi, called UAE’s Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme
Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, a ‘dictator’, as
per the interview published by French magazine Le Point. Al-Harfi’s choice of word
appeared to be an attempt to slander Emirates’ Arab leaders as a bitter
reaction to UAE’s normalisation agreement with Israel, signed last month.
On Monday, in an interview with Radio
Monte Carlo International, Al-Harfi called the UAE-Israel peace agreements as “free normalization”, and questioned: “Was the Arab initiative merely a
maneuver or was it aimed at solving the Arab-Israeli conflict?”
Al-Harfi condemned the inception of
normalization of ties between Arab world and Israel as US President
Donald Trump’s plan to win US elections not Palestine-Israel peace. He said, “These are the instructions of US
President Donald Trump
to these countries, which he sent in writing through his Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo, as the US policy is rude enough to embarrass these countries.”
Palestinian official said that Trump’s
senior aide and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is believed to be one of the
key architects of the plan, tired to win support for the plan to assure
reelection victory of the American president rather than resolving serve
Palestinian -Israeli conflict considering the two-state solution. He concluded
by saying, “It is as if our
brothers are standing on the side of Israel and the United States in opposing
Palestinians and Arabs.”
UAE leaders considered Al-Harfi’s
statement as revolting and offensive. UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign
Affairs Anwar Gargash slammed Al-Harfi’s statement in his tweet, posted on Tuesday: “I was not surprised by the Palestinian
ambassador’s speech to Paris and his ungrateful
handling of the Emirates. We are used to lack of loyalty and gratefulness, and
we are moving confidently towards the future with our steps and convictions.”
''gratefulness,
and we are moving confidently towards the future with our steps and
convictions.”
Many wondered how true were Al-Harfi’s
concerns and claims. It’s important to note that the Palestinian ambassador has a
reputation of switching sides for convenience, ditching Palestinians for money
and throwing parties in Parisian style. Unfortunately none of the above even
happen to be closely associated to the cause of resolving Israeli-Palestinian
decades long conflict, which is suddenly seemed awaken to blaming UAE for
deviating from the path.
Besides, many analysts even wondered if
this attack on UAE’s crown prince was a consequence of Al-Harfi’s forewarning,
which he gave at the time of formalisation of peace agreement between UAE and
Israel. El Herfi threatened, “We warn and appeal to everyone not to follow the example of the
Emirates, which betrayed Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. There
will be a response for the Palestinian people, and it will come soon. We ask
the UAE not to interfere in Palestine's affairs, and we are not unable to
respond. We do not threaten anyone, but the Palestinian people are not a
vehicle that anyone can use to reach their goals.”
Around the same time, Saeb Erekat, the
chief Palestinian negotiator, gave a televised speech national Palestinian television, to condemn the deal and present an ultimatum to the head of the
Arab League to either reject the agreement or resign.
“Everything on which international agreements are based on have been
torpedoed by this behavior. That is why I say that His Excellency the Secretary
of the Arab League, my brother Ahmed Aboul Gheit, should issue a statement
condemning and denouncing this step, and if he is unable to do so, I think that
his resignation is appropriate,” Erekat told Palestine TV.
“What happened was a flagrant violation of the Arab League’s charter, mainly when the Arab League was established because of
Palestine. Likewise, what happened was a flagrant violation of the Arab Peace
Initiative and its cancellation, and this is a reward for the occupation,”
Erekat added.
As per the media reports, Palestinian
leaders were support by Qatar, which launched a full-fledged media campaign on
its state-funded media station, Al Jazeera to denounce the UAE-Israel ties and
use the Palestinian cause as a bait to provoke rage against Emirates. But what
Al-Harfi’ probably forgot to
consider was the fact that Qatar itself has had diplomatic ties with Israel. In
2007, Israel’s then-Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres
visited in Qatar, and it wasn’t his first, as he had gone to Qatar for an official
state visit in 1996 received by then-Emir Sheikh Hamad ibn Khalifa al-Thani
when Peres was serving as prime minister of Israel. Besides, in 2008 Israel's
then-Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni went to Doha as a guest speaker to attend
the eighth Forum on Democracy, Development and Free Trade,
Later, the Qatari ambassador to Tunisia,
Saad Nasser Al-Hamid attended a synagogue ceremony in the Tunisian region of
Djerba, at the ceremony which marked the 62nd anniversary of the establishment
of Israel. In a scandalous episode of
2011, Qatari official sent his thugs to attack 4 Palestinians in Tunisia who
had fled Libya and tried to seek help from the Palestinian embassy in Tunis.
One of those 4 victims of
stabbing said, "This stab is so that you do not
raise your masters' life again."
And after that incident, Al-Hamid in a
television interview on Tunisian channels, urged Tunisian officials not to
receive the Palestinians, indicating that the Palestinian were a cause for
terrorism and chaos in the region. These incidents of abuse and violence led to
the intervention of the Tunisian Commission for Refugees and Foreign Affairs.
The organization, along with the Fatah movement cadres condemned silence of
Al-Harfi over the matter (as he was the then Palestinian ambassador to Tunisia)
and his appointment to the position, stating: “We condemn and denounce the appointment of the dwarf
named Salman Al-Harfi to this site, after all the scandals and abuses he
committed in suspicious deals, and the fake projects with the thieves Imad
Shakour and Sami Farah.”
The most uncanny aspect of Al-Harfi’s
position has been the fact that despite his not standing for Palestinian cause,
Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas couldn’t abandon him and rather placed him as
ambassador in Paris.
The Palestinian official in France has
done equal amount of damage to his own people as he suggested the French
authorities to deport
Palestinians. Apparently, it is considered to be part
of the trade network managed by Mahmoud Abbas’s sons (in Africa), and help them
in their trade in gold and diamonds, taking advantage of Al-Harfi’s diplomatic
status, and immunity. And this trade started when he was ambassador to South
Africa, and he was behind many fake deals that wasted millions of dollars from
Palestine and then money instead went to Mahmoud Abbas, who considered these
funds a great sacrifice offered by Al-Harfi.
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