BICOM

Contradictory details have emerged of a heated exchanged between the US President and the Palestinian Authority Chairman when they met in Bethlehem last week.

According to Israel’s Channel 2 News, US President Donald Trump shouted at Mahmoud Abbas during their meeting, saying Israel had presented him with evidence that the Palestinian leader was “personally responsible for incitement” to violence.

Trump reportedly accused Abbas of lying “about [his] commitment to peace,” making it clear to the Palestinian leader that he must curb anti-Israeli incitement in the Palestinian education system.

In response, one senior Palestinian official said that last week’s meeting “started on a positive note, but it deteriorated after Trump accused Abbas of supporting incitement and terrorism with the salaries paid to prisoners”.

Abbas reportedly told Trump that a joint Palestinian-Israeli committee to deal with incitement on both sides had not met for years, at which point the Palestinian official said that Trump lost his patience and interrupted Abbas.

Trump said: “You can talk about how much you want peace, but that’s empty rhetoric.”

Following these statements, another senior Palestinian officials claimed the clash a “total fabrication and a lie”.

Nabil Shaath, Abbas’s foreign policy adviser, told the Jerusalem Post that while he is aware that the issue of incitement was raised in the Bethlehem meeting, he has no knowledge of Trump shouting at Abbas.

He said: “There was a question that Mr Trump had about something that Mr Netanyahu told him. Our president explained the matter very clearly to Mr Trump and the meeting went on quite productively.”

Israel has long accused the Palestinian leadership and Abbas of incitement by praising violent attackers. The Palestinian Authority spends millions of pounds a year paying the families of terrorists who are either jailed in Israel or were killed carrying out terrorist attacks against Israelis.

During a Knesset panel yesterday, Brig. Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, a former director  general of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, said that the Palestinian Authority had paid out some £870m over the past four years to terrorists and their families.