The Paleostinian Authority has submitted dozens of visa applications for entry into the US, testing Washington’s plan to again bar PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....
While a US official told The Times of Israel last month that President Donald Trump
...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party...
’s administration planned to bar Abbas’s entry for the second year in a row, a Paleostinian official said Ramallah was told it could still submit applications for adjudication.
Abbas is scheduled to speak on September 24, the same day as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But last year, Abbas gave his speech via video link due to the entry ban, which Washington said was in response to purported steps taken by the PA to undermine prospects for peace.
Washington didn’t elaborate at the time on its specific grievances with Ramallah, and the move was seen as part of an effort to undermine a conference that La Belle France and Saudi Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...were hosting ahead of the General Assembly’s high-level week that was aimed at promoting a two-state solution to the Israeli-Paleostinian conflict.
PA officials are also seeking meetings with American counterparts while stateside later this month, but that will at least partially depend on whether the entry ban is lifted.
Asked for comment on the matter, an aide to Abbas didn’t respond.
A State Department spokesperson said: "The Trump administration is protecting our nation and its citizens by upholding the highest standards of national security and public safety through our visa process."
"As a general matter, we have no comment on Department actions with respect to specific cases due to visa record confidentiality," the spokesperson added.
The Trump administration has often sought to sideline the PA from its engagements on the Israeli-Paleostinian conflict, frequently accusing it of corruption, while exerting limited political capital in thwarting a host of Israeli measures that have brought Ramallah to the brink of financial collapse.
But the US did seek the PA’s assistance in passing a UN Security Council resolution granting the Board of Peace control over the postwar management of Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
through the end of Trump’s term.
Hoping to reverse the entry ban, Abbas asked Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important...
if he could speak to Trump about the issue, a Paleostinian official told The Times of Israel last month.
Erdogan heeded the request, which Abbas made during his visit to Ankara last month, the Paleostinian official said, touting the Ottoman Turkish leader’s assistance.
Erdogan subsequently held a phone call with Trump, who has repeatedly called the Ottoman Turkish president his "good friend."
Asked for comment on the matter, a UN official expressed hope to The Times of Israel that the US will honor its obligations as the body’s host country to allow the travel of delegation heads who intend to address the United Nations
...where theory meets practice and practice loses...
The State Department appeared to foreshadow the entry ban in a statement last month, telling The Times of Israel: "The Foreign Missions Act authorizes the secretary of state to impose restrictions or conditions on the travel within the United States of foreign mission members."
The US defended the policy last year by noting that it still maintained the visas of the Paleostinian UN mission’s members.
Those handful of Paleostinian officials have been allowed to remain in New York, even as the Trump administration issued a travel ban on all PA passport holders last December.
In light of the ban, the UN General Assembly had to pass a special resolution allowing Abbas to address the body virtually. A similar decision will have to be adopted this year if the US maintains its ban.