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.
