In his Nov. 30 Fatah convention speech, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed readiness to talk to the new Donald Trump administration about a two-state solution. But despite this readiness, the Palestinian leadership is looking for alternatives in the international community to advance Palestinian statehood in 2017. A senior PLO official close to Abbas told Al-Monitor on the condition of anonymity that the Palestinian leadership is reaching out to Russia for active intervention on a two-state solution based on the 1967 lines.
Abbas spoke about this in detail with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev during Medvedev’s visit to Jericho on Nov. 11 and asked him to convey an urgent message in this regard to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The source explained that according to Palestinian analysis, Putin will probably be one of the only world leaders to whom Trump will listen.
The Palestinians are suggesting to Moscow to include a two-state solution based on the 1967 lines within a regional deal that could be brokered between Trump and Putin in the coming months. The Palestinians estimate that such a deal would include US-Russia cooperation in Syria in favor of President Bashar al-Assad’s rule in order to solidify the joint fight against the Islamic State and guarantee the basic parameters of the Iran nuclear agreement.
In this context, Ramallah is now asking Moscow for Palestinian statehood within a realistic timeline to be part of an eventual US-Russia deal. The Palestinian leadership believes that Russia’s positions on the Israeli-Palestinian issue are close to those of the Palestinians, and it also estimates that the Israeli leadership’s respect for Putin could be useful here.
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