RAMALLAH, January 4, 2018 (WAFA) – The United States is embarking on a new path for the Palestinian-Israeli peace process that includes dropping the issues of Jerusalem and refugees from the negotiations, Saeb Erekat, Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee, said on Thursday.

“The US administration is actually embarking on to a new path, which includes dictating solutions on the Palestinian people and dropping the Jerusalem and refugee files while keeping the situation as it is so that the upper hand will be for the Israeli occupation,” he told Voice of Palestine.

“This is something our people, who will remain steadfast in their country, will never accept,” he said.

“We will have nothing left as Arabs without Jerusalem,” said Erekat, calling on the Arab countries to put into effect their summit resolutions, including the Amman summit (1980), Algeria (1990) and Cairo (2000) that called for cutting relations with countries that move their embassy to Jerusalem.

He pointed out that the issue of activating the decisions of the Arab summits will be presented to the Arab ministerial meeting, which will be chaired by Jordan and which will convene on Saturday in Amman, in addition to three other issues that will be presented to the meeting, namely to bring down the decision by US President Donald Trump on Jerusalem, prevent any country from moving its embassy to Jerusalem and to win world recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Palestine.

Erekat described the decisions that will be issued by the upcoming Palestinian Central Council meeting as decisive. He said that the council will set the stage for a new phase to defeat American and Israeli attempts to liquidate the Palestinian cause.

He said that “if we do not help ourselves, no one will help us. Our reconciliation is the base and Hamas must be aware of this and be part of the Central Council meeting due to convene on January 14 in Ramallah.

M.K.