Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. Photo: Facebook.

PLO chairman, Palestinian Authority president and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas recently spoke at the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, where he attempted to torpedo the growing and burgeoning ties between Israel and a number of African countries

Abbas said that African nations must condition their ties with Israel to Israel’s “commitment to end the occupation of the land of the State of Palestine.”

“The attempts of the Israeli occupying state to participate in your regional conference and to organize regional conferences encourage it to continue its arrogance, its occupation of Palestine and its denial of the rights of the Palestinian people with regard to freedom, sovereignty and independence … These are basic human values and principles,” he said.

“We hope that there will be a link between any progress in the relations between the continent and Israel, and [Israel’s] commitment to end its occupation of the land of Palestine, which has been occupied since 1967 and whose capital is eastern Jerusalem,” Abbas added.

According to Abbas, of course, the countless efforts that Israel has made toward peace are not appropriate for African nations to consider — perhaps because Abbas rejected them all.

Frightened of the possibility that African economic ties with Israel might translate to political support for the Jewish state, Abbas instead insisted that African countries continue to vote against Israel at the UN and other international bodies, claiming that only one-sided pressure on Israel can bring about peace.

Abbas also claimed that the Palestinian Authority, which pays salaries to living terrorists and supports erecting monuments to dead ones, is working with the US as a full partner in the fight against terror. But when has the truth ever stopped Mahmoud Abbas?