“Secretary of State Marco Rubio is denying and revoking visas from members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) ahead of the upcoming United Nations General Assembly,” the State Department announced in a media advisory today. Unnamed State Department officials later informed Israeli media (Haaretz, Times of Israel) that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is on the list of officials to be refused entry into the United States, along with 80 other PA officials,
What justification is given for this outrage? The State Department charges that it is the PLO and PA which are “undermining the prospects for peace.” One condition for the Palestinians to be deemed acceptable “partners for peace,” is that the PLO and PA “consistently repudiate terrorism—including the October 7 massacre—and end incitement to terrorism in education,” State writes.
The second is that the Palestinians must end all international actions against the genocide their people are suffering, and stop organizing for their right to statehood, because those efforts, State alleges, are the reason there is no peace yet! As the State Department so crudely put it:
“The PA must also end its attempts to bypass negotiations through international lawfare campaigns, including appeals to the ICC and ICJ, and efforts to secure the unilateral recognition of a conjectural Palestinian state. Both steps materially contributed to Hamas’s refusal to release its hostages, and to the breakdown of the Gaza ceasefire talks.”
