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Palestinians insist that there is no back channel with Washington

Is there or isn’t there a back channel of talks between the Palestinians and the US administration?
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during a Security Council meeting at the United Nations in New York, U.S., February 11, 2020.  REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton - RC2FYE9T70OQ

When Yasser Abed Rabbo led a four-man PLO delegation to meet with US Ambassador to Tunis Robert Peletru in 1988, the meeting was hailed as a huge breakthrough. After the 90-minute meeting, Abed Rabbo said, “We hope this dialogue will continue and we think it will continue.”

That first PLO-US meeting might be in the distant past now, but the current situation appears to be reversed. The American ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, is now claiming to have secret back-channel talks with the Palestinians; the Palestinians are denying this vehemently.

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