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Why Palestinians Oppose an Anti-Iran Coalition

(Gatestone Institute) Khaled Abu Toameh - For several weeks now, the leadership of the Palestinian Authority (PA) has been waging a campaign against a U.S.-Polish conference scheduled for Warsaw this week. U.S. and Polish officials said the conference will include sessions on Syria, Yemen, missile development, terrorism and illicit finance and cybersecurity, as well as "Iran's destructive policies in the region." But the Palestinians have somehow convinced themselves that the main purpose of the conference is to bring the Arab countries closer to Israel, though neither the U.S. nor Poland has mentioned the issue of normalization as being on the agenda. PLO Executive Committee member Ahmed Majdalani said, "This is an attempt to change the priorities in the Middle East so that confronting Iran would become the main issue instead of ending the [Israeli] occupation," and called on Arab countries to boycott the conference. Several Arab countries now consider the Iranian "threat" their main priority and believe that it should take precedence over the Palestinian dispute. Even if the conference is aimed at creating a coalition against Iran, one would expect the PA to be the first to join it. In the past few years, the Palestinian leadership has repeatedly charged Iran with meddling in the internal affairs of the Palestinians, especially by supporting Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. Recently, a senior Palestinian official accused Iran of being behind the weekly March of Return demonstrations, saying, "Iran is financing these marches."
2019-02-14 00:00:00
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