For the second consecutive year, the U.S. government has refused to grant a visa to Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, so that he could participate in the UN General Assembly next week, citing a lack of “reforms,” a source familiar with the matter said yesterday, Wednesday.
“As a result of their failure to implement reforms, contrary to commitments they had made to the U.S., and their ongoing activities that undermine the prospects for peace, the U.S. will extend its sanctions by prohibiting the issuance of visas to members of the PLO (i.e., the Palestine Liberation Organization) and to officials of the Palestinian Authority,” it was also stated in a press release issued by the U.S. Department of State.
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Israeli settlers beat up a photojournalist in the West Bank
An Agence France-Presse source confirmed that this also applies to Abbas.
In 2025, the Trump administration had also refused to grant him a visa, forcing the Palestinian politician—who attended the General Assembly almost every year—to address the other leaders via video link.
Washington accuses him of “breaching commitments” he had made to restore “peace in the Middle East” and “actions that undermine it,” aimed at “internationalizing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” particularly through “the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ)” of the UN.
Furthermore, it alleges that the Palestinian Authority is attempting to “bypass” bilateral negotiations by “seeking unilateral recognition” and that “continues to provide benefits to terrorists and to glorify terrorism and terrorists in public statements and school textbooks,” according to the State Department’s statement.
The U.S. is moving in the opposite direction from several other countries, including France, which recognized the State of Palestine at the UN last year.
A total of 142 UN member states did so, following a conference on the two-state solution co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia.
The U.S. diplomat’s announcement comes against the backdrop of violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, which has escalated in recent months in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli army occupied the West Bank during the 1967 war. Violence in the region has surged following the outbreak of war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by an attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on the southern part of Israeli territory on October 7, 2023.
According to an AFP tally based on data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Israeli soldiers or settlers have since killed at least 1,109 Palestinians, including militants and civilians.
The international community has recently been expressing concern in an increasingly strong tone about the escalation of violence, but Washington remains generally cautious on the issue, limiting itself to reiterating that it opposes the annexation of Palestinian territory by Israel.
Source: KYPE
