Palestinian Authority May Phase Out Security Cooperation With Israel - Lawmaker

The Palestinian National Authority looks set to phase out security cooperation with Israel, Najib Qaddoumi, a member of the Palestinian National Council, told Sputnik

AMMAN (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th April, 2019) The Palestinian National Authority looks set to phase out security cooperation with Israel, Najib Qaddoumi, a member of the Palestinian National Council, told Sputnik.

"Coordination on security is not what it used to be. It has been significantly scaled down. I think the Palestinian authority will gradually free itself from security coordination," he said.

Israel has been emboldened by US President Donald Trump who has repeatedly reassured Israel of his support since he took office in 2017. He recognized divided Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved the US embassy there. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who won a fourth term, said he would annex Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The United Nations views Israel's illegal settlements as an obstacle to the internationally-favored two-state solution for its conflict with Palestinians, who seek their own state with the capital in Jerusalem.

Trump has been drafting an alternative peace plan for over two year, which reportedly proposes a Palestinian state in 90 percent of West Bank territories and the splitting of Jerusalem.

Qaddoumi said that Palestine and its ally, Jordan, were against the US-drafted plan but denied reports that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas had been spending increasingly more time in Amman in an effort to coordinate their positions on Trump's "deal of the century." He said they had been coordinating before. He also explained that Jordan was a transit country for Abbas on his foreign trips.