Abbas: Obama behind failed peace talk conditions

WEST BANK — Palestinian de facto president Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview with Newsweek on Monday that conditions he set for the recently failed peace talks with Israel were proposed by US President Barack Obama.

Abbas threatened then to walk out of resumed peace talks if Israel did not agree to curb settlement activity in the West Bank. He later fulfilled his vows after a settlement freeze expired as peace talks were heightening.

”It was Obama who suggested a full settlement freeze. I said O.K., I accept. We both went up the tree. After that, he came down with a ladder, and he removed the ladder and said to me, ‘jump.’ Three times, he did it,” Abbas said.

Abbas also criticized mediation efforts by US envoy to the Mideast George Mitchell, who made repeated visits to the region for more than two years before coming to a complete halt.

”Every visit by Mitchell, we talked to him and gave him some ideas. At the end, we discovered that he didn’t convey any of these ideas to the Israelis. What does it mean?”

Similarly, Abbas confessed he warned Obama of the dangers of forsaking ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

He said how Obama dealt with Mubarak was not gracious, and that he wasn’t intelligent in dealing with the Egyptian revolutionaries.

Abbas added that he informed US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the Egyptian revolution that she did not comprehend the consequences of the fall of the then Egyptian regime.