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Palestine refuses to be pushed around by the US
Faced with defeat in Syria and elsewhere in the region, Saudi Prince Mohammed has chosen Lebanon as Riyadh’s next battleground. JOHN HAYLETT reports on the rapidly deteriorating political realities

IMAGES of worms turning came to mind this week when Mahmoud Abbas told the Trump administration he would freeze all communications with the US if it closed the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) offices in Washington.

The Palestinian president was squeezed for threatening to take Israel to the International Criminal Court for war crimes committed against civilians in Gaza and its colonial expansionism on the West Bank.

The US State Department, which renews PLO permission to operate in Washington on a half-yearly basis, refused the latest application last week, provoking fury from Abbas and other PLO officials.

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