Palestinians Try to Sway Trump, Reaching Out to Tiffany Trump's Relative

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

87% : Trump replied that Abbas' letter was "so nice" and declared "everything will be good.
64% : And he quickly congratulated Trump on his presidential victory.
64% : Abbas -- and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel -- were among the first to congratulate Trump on his election victory.
53% : "When we hear Trump say he wants peace, we take that to heart, but peace has to be based on Palestinian independence and self-determination," said Husam Zomlot, the head of the Palestinian mission to Britain, who had the same role in Washington at the beginning of the last Trump administration.
50% : These overtures by Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, are part of a broad strategy to rehabilitate his once adversarial relationship with Trump as Palestinians reckon with an incoming president who expressed near unreserved backing for Israel in his first term.
50% : But Abbas' efforts to reach out to Trump started well before the election.
49% : On Friday, Abbas spoke to Trump by phone, and the two discussed the possibility of meeting in the near future, according to Ziad Abu Amr, a close confidant of Abbas and a senior Palestinian official.
38% : While Palestinian officials described the meeting as a part of an outreach effort to Trump, Boulos told the Times it was "purely personal" and said that he didn't inform Trump about the meeting before or after.Abu Amr, who attended the meeting, said Boulos conveyed Trump's desire to end wars around the world, including in the Gaza Strip.
37% : "Our stance on the new American administration will depend on its positions and practical policy toward the Palestinian people and its legitimate rights," it said Wednesday.Palestinians in Gaza have borne the brunt of Israel's onslaught, and some said they hoped Trump could end the war in Gaza.
31% : Even Hamas, the armed group that led the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that ignited the Israel-Hamas war and a bitter rival of the Palestinian Authority, has adopted a more cautious tone toward Trump.
31% : Some Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, who have endured a devastating Israeli bombardment, expressed hope that Trump could end the war, while others said they were skeptical.
28% : Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump, did not respond to questions about the meeting.
27% : "The U.S. has always sided with the occupying state of Israel," said Muhanned Shaath, a youth and community activist in Gaza City, "so I doubt much will change, especially if Trump keeps pushing his old plans."
25% : He wrote a letter to Trump condemning the assassination attempt against him.
23% : But Trump has publicly called for the war in Gaza to stop.
19% : In addition, Boulos and Bahbah said they helped facilitate the delivery of a letter from Abbas to Trump in July condemning an assassination attempt against him, which Trump posted on Truth Social.
11% : Tiffany Trump's father-in-law, Massad Boulos, a Lebanese American businessperson who has served as an unofficial emissary of the Trump campaign to Arab American voters, helped Abbas communicate with Trump in recent months, as has Bishara Bahbah, a Palestinian American backer of Trump, according to people involved in the effort.
9% : If Trump tries to "push us around, we can still shout 'no.'"While efforts to court Trump could backfire, the Palestinian leadership lacks options other than trying to engage with the president-elect and Arab and European allies who can reinforce its positions with him, analysts said.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.