Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has expressed his delight at the performance of the new Egyptian regime.
Abbas made public that US Secretary of State John Kerry had said in their meeting in Ramallah last Thursday: “Please, send my greetings to General Al-Sisi”, when Kerry found out about the Palestinian Premier’s scheduled visit to Cairo.
In a separate meeting with Egyptian journalists, Abbas said that he told General Sisi what Egyptians and Arabs in general think of the Egyptian Minister of Defence: – that Sisi is “a leader who did what no one else could have done”.
Abbas also said to the Egyptian press that his initial intuition about Sisi was that “he is a great leader” and that he is “doing his job properly”.
Abbas and the Egyptian media
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Abbas – also known by his kunya Abu Mazen – joked with the reporters during the meeting, which was held in the in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis, saying that he had become fixated with Egyptian media, sometimes following it fervently from 9am – 2am.
Abu Mazen watches Egyptian TV stations at length and knows all the news anchors by personally because they are regularly guests at his home as media professionals.
A high-ranking member of the Palestinian delegation accompanying Abbas described what happened in Egypt on 30 June as “a divine miracle, like the descending of a revelation from heaven.”
He added: “The Egyptian people have ended a phenomenon that has existed throughout the entire world, not only in Egypt.”
Abbas, Morsi and US pressure
A source close to Abbas revealed that the Palestinian President had warned Mohammed Morsi that Israel was trying to stall the Palestinian liberation struggle and to enforce Gaza on Egypt by making Palestinians in Gaza settle in the Sinai.
According to the source Morsi allegedly asked Abbas: “How many are those of Gaza?” to which he answered “One million and half”. Morsi then suggested that “We could take them in Shubra”.
The source added that: “It is becoming more evident day after day that it is Israel and the US that have arranged the rise of Hamas to power in the Gaza Strip,” explaining that at the time Abbas had been contemplating delaying the elections for a while because he knew it was unlikely that Fatah would win.
But he was faced with immense pressure from the US pressure and threats. Abu Mazen was even shocked when Israel allowed East Jerusalem’s Palestinians to vote.
Abbas told the Egyptian press that he pointed out to General Sisi that by defending Egypt he is also defending Palestine – “People never realized how dangerous Hamas was until the Muslim Brotherhood fell in Egypt.”
The sources alleged that the revenue generated out of the trade came from the tunnels were so high that they resulted in the presence of 1,800 millionaires in Gaza; those “millionaires” according to Abbas, smuggled everything through the tunnels – cigarettes, rockets, opium, and machines used for forging money.
