The speech by Mahmoud Abbas ratcheted up what has been more than a month of harsh rhetoric toward Trump since the president's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Speaking to the Palestinian Central Council, a decision-making body, Abbas repeated the Palestinians' opposition to Trump's Jerusalem recognition and censured Trump for accusing the Palestinians of refusing to negotiate. "He (Trump) said in a tweet: `We won't give money to the Palestinians because they rejected the negotiations,"' Abbas said. Trump has responded by threatening to cut aid and to reduce U.S. payments to the U.N.'s Palestinian refugee agency. But if true, the proposal would fall far short of Palestinian claims to the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza for an independent state.

Source: Fox News January 14, 2018 21:33 UTC