RAMALLAH, Thursday, January 30, 2020 (WAFA) – Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said today that the recently uncovered US peace plan, also known as the deal of the century, was only a proposal for an apartheid regime which legitimizes Israel’s colonial project in the West Bank.
Speaking to the CNN, he said the Palestinian people and leadership have rejected the deal simply because it “simply gives Jerusalem completely to the Israelis, creates a temporal and spatial division of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and keeps the Jewish settlements on Palestinian land, where 720,000 settlers would remain illegally on our lands.”
“What President Trump actually proposes is 60% of the 22% of historic Palestine, meaning that he wants to cut 40% off the Palestinian territories, at a time when the Oslo Agreement was supposed to guarantee all of the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians,” he added.
On American allegations that the Palestinians are missing opportunities, Shtayyeh explained: “This is not an opportunity, nor a prelude to negotiation, but rather the maintenance of the fait accompli while calling it a Palestinian state."
“This plan is 100% biased with the Israelis, and it is in complete harmony with what Netanyahu wants, because he is the real author [of the plan]. The plan carries his same language, ideas and speeches that we heard and read previously," he continued.
The Prime Minister stressed that “Israel should not be allowed to be above the law. It violates human rights, seizes Palestinian lands, and illegally builds Jewish settlements.”
“The United States cannot grant things it does not possess. These are Palestinian lands, and Israel cannot annex any part of them… What is happening now is that the US administration is trying to create a new reference for the [peace] solution and give legitimacy to this annexation. This is a very dangerous situation.”
Shtayyeh also rejected US President Trump’s proposal for a Palestinian capital in any place adjacent to East Jerusalem.
“Jerusalem is not any part of Jerusalem, Jerusalem is the old town and the surrounding area and the entire basin of the Holy City, where 300 thousand Jerusalemites live. Jerusalem is the city that was occupied in 1967.”
M.N
