Abbas livid that Qatari ambassador praised Israel, insulted PA on Gaza reconstruction

Yesterday I was the first (and still only) to report in English that the president of the Qatari National Committee for the Reconstruction of the Gaza Strip and their ambassador to Gaza) Mohammed Al-Emadi, had praised Israel for helping in reconstruction efforts in Gaza while slamming the international mechanisms that were meant to help ordinary Gazans. He also charged Egypt and the PA with wasting the $100 million Qatar had donated to help Gaza electricity needs.

Emadi said that the only way to help Gazans get power would be for Israel to add a new 100 megawatt line, and he said that he was not negotiating with Israel on the issue but was negotiating the idea through the PA.

Emadi also announced that Qatar will pay $1000 to every owner of a destroyed home.

After the interview was published in Safa.ps, Mahmoud Abbas immediately scheduled a visit to Qatar at the end of this month, right after an Arab Summit meeting in Sharm el Sheikh on the 28th. He is apparently incensed that a Qatari official would break ranks with the normally solid anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian Arab front to make such statements. Through the game of telephone that the media often engages in, Abbas apparently thinks that Emadi said that he was meeting with senior Israeli officials himself about the power line and construction materials (he explicitly said he wasn't in the interview.)

As Karama Press states, "It seems that the movements of Ambassador angered the Palestinian presidency, which prefers to silence the media about him, and to prevent any public criticism directly about him, until a meeting of President Abbas with the Emir of Qatar in Doha. "

Al Resalah adds that Abbas was angry that Qatar was negotiating to increase the amount of cement going into Gaza, apparently successfully, without deferring to the PLO in all matters concerning Gaza.

Fatah expressed its "worry" about the Qatari moves through its Secretary of the Revolutionary Council Ameen Maqboul.

Maqboul considered the meetings of the Qataris and the Israelis as overstep to the PA's role.

Raialyoum Newspaper revealed that the PA President Mahmoud Abbas give the Fatah officials a green light to attack Qatar.

Quds Press says that Abbas is accusing Qatar of supporting an independent Hamas-run state in Gaza.

The amount of aid transported from Israel to Gaza has been steadily increasing, with 640 trucks scheduled to go to Kerem Shalom today (on any day, scores of the scheduled trucks never arrive.)

This incident shows how much Abbas works to silence any media criticism of himself, as well as to silence anything positive about Israel. In this case it failed because the Hamas/Fatah split and the Abbas/Dahlan split has ensured that there are many media outlets who are against Abbas.