Mahmoud Abbas Becomes Redundant

The Trump administration announced Friday it would deny and revoke visas for about 80 senior Palestinian officials, including President Mahmoud Abbas, ahead of the UN General Assembly in New York in September. The move, unprecedented in scope, would bar most of the Palestinian delegation from one of their few global platforms.

The State Department justified the measure by citing the Palestinian Authority’s appeals to international courts, its alleged refusal to condemn the October 07 attacks, and its pursuit of unilateral recognition. Yet the decision violates the 1947 UN Headquarters Agreement, which obliges Washington, as host state, to admit all delegations. International law, like diplomacy, is treated in Washington as a tool bent to Israel’s interests.

Contrary to US assertions that Abbas has not condemned the Hamas October 07 operation, in a letter sent in early June 2025 to French President Emmanuel Macron — and also to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — Abbas wrote that what Hamas did, “in killing and taking civilians hostage, is unacceptable and condemnable.” He further called for the immediate release of all hostages, the dismantling of Hamas’s military capabilities, and its removal from power in Gaza.

The ban is striking because the Palestinian Authority has long served as a subcontractor for Israel’s occupation. Rather than a liberation movement, Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah became administrators of an imposed status quo.

The so-called PA “security forces” have worked closely with Israel to suppress resistance—arresting fighters, dispersing protests, and keeping order while settlements expanded. The Authority collected taxes, ran services, and projected a façade of sovereignty as Israel tightened control.

Again and again, Abbas bent to US and Israeli demands: endless “peace talks” without peace, restraining international campaigns against Israel, and managing a bureaucracy designed more to pacify than to resist.

His rhetoric echoed Washington’s ostensible preference for negotiations over confrontation. Yet the moment he pursued even mild accountability—seeking prosecutions in The Hague, he and his entourage were punished like enemies.

The lesson is clear. Compliance has not protected Abbas. Obedience has not earned favor. By banning the delegation, Washington has shown that subservience guarantees nothing. The PA’s decades of compromise have delivered only humiliation, proving that trading resistance for hollow promises is a bargain with no reward.

Washington claims its decision safeguards peace, but hypocrisy is obvious. In 1988, it denied Yasser Arafat a visa, forcing the UN to relocate to Geneva so he could speak.

In 2013, it barred Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir over his ICC indictment. Yet Benjamin Netanyahu—himself wanted by the ICC for Gaza crimes—will address the Assembly without issue. Law is wielded selectively; principle turned into a cudgel.

Timing also reveals intent. France, the UK, and Canada are preparing to recognize Palestine, joining nearly 150 countries that already do. Washington fears Abbas might use the UN podium to press for independence, and so silences him preemptively. This is not diplomacy but sabotage—an effort to erase Palestinians from the global conversation just as momentum builds for recognition.

Even so, Europe’s recognition drive is riddled with contradictions. Recognition without sovereignty is little more than a flag on paper. A Palestinian “state” lacking borders, airspace, water, and an economy would be a phantom. The Western vision is one of management, not liberation: Abbas — or a hand-picked successor in his mold — presiding over fractured enclaves while Israel sets the terms.

Yet even this empty gesture alarms Washington and Tel Aviv, who move to crush it before it gathers force. The visa ban is more than bureaucracy—it is an assault on Palestinian representation itself. Once again, the US proves not a mediator but Israel’s enforcer, binding its credibility to permanent occupation.

For those who believed collaboration would yield liberation, the lesson could not be sharper. Decades of compliance, of abandoning armed struggle for negotiations and coordinating security with an occupier, have yielded nothing but betrayal.

The moment Abbas sought accountability, he was discarded like a tool no longer useful. You cannot compromise your way to freedom; bargaining with those determined to erase you leads only to erasure.

In silencing Abbas, Washington has not just humiliated a pliant Authority. It has broadcast contempt for international law, the UN system, and Palestinian voices.

The US poses as the champion of democracy and human rights, but this is the behavior of an authoritarian bully afraid of losing control. And though the Palestinian delegation may be barred from September’s Assembly, their absence will speak louder than any speech—reminding the world that a people erased from the chamber are not erased from history.