This weekend is the "Palestinians Abroad" conference in Istanbul. About 4000 people attended the first day's ceremony.
The PLO has been very concerned about this conference because it was not involved. Sure enough, while the point of the conference is "return," the speakers have attacked the PLO more than Israel, based on the tweets coming from the conference. The PLO pretends to represent them and they do not feel that they are represented at all.
Dr. Anis Qassem: We demad our right to be part of the PLO. We must work towards destruction of Oslo Accords. pic.twitter.com/h83dtFiUmh— Middle East Monitor (@MiddleEastMnt) February 25, 2017
Dr. Salman Abu Sitta: We should purge #Palestine through democratic elections. https://t.co/MxTKpYpIvK pic.twitter.com/w75FxrC8iH— Middle East Monitor (@MiddleEastMnt) February 25, 2017
Arabic tweets of the speech of another official, Mohsen Salah, has him saying "Depriving the Palestinians out of the opportunity to participate in the Palestinian decision is a crime against the entire people" and "No one can monopolize the national decision."
Not surprisingly, the mainstream Palestinian press is ignoring this conference. The PLO's Saeb Erekat instead is attending that other pro-Arab conference, the J-Street Conference, this weekend.
We also learn some wonderful facts from the Istanbul conference, like this one:
Dr. Salman Abu Sitta: 7 million #Palestinian children have been born since Oslo Accords. https://t.co/MxTKpYpIvK pic.twitter.com/OZ9fUbbhiN— Middle East Monitor (@MiddleEastMnt) February 25, 2017
7 million!
And they all want to live in Tel Aviv! (I'm sorry, "Tel al-Rabi," the wonderful and mythical Arab metropolis that was taken over by the Jews.)
(h/t SpotlightingSA)