JERICHO, Friday, July 19, 2019 (WAFA) – Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), dismissed rumors propagated by pro-US and Israel parties that the Palestinian leadership was facing international isolation.
During a workshop in Jericho, east of the West Bank, on the recent US-sponsored Manama Workshop, Erekat said "the claim circulated by some pro-Israel and U.S. parties that the Palestinian people and leadership are facing international and political isolation is a reverberation of what [Jason] Greenblatt has said."
He said the reason why Greenblatt had described the Palestinian leadership as internationally and politically isolated is its rejection of the US measures against the Palestinian people, leadership and heritage.
"How can Palestine be isolated when its President, Mahmoud Abbas, has become the chairman of the Group of 77 and China, an economic and human group of 135 countries, representing 81% of the world population?" Erekat wondered.
He continued, "How do they describe the Palestinian leadership and cause as isolated when [Palestine] has garnered the support of the European Union, the African Union, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Non-Aligned Countries, the Latin American and Caribbean States, Russia, China, Japan, Canada and the Arab countries?"
He said that following the recent Manama Workshop, the US administration, led by Donald Trump, has been actively working towards settling the Palestinian refugees in their host countries.
He quoted Jared Kushner, Trump‘s top adviser, as saying that the US administration has asked host countries to settle 900 thousand Palestinian refugees in their lands, a number that is equal to the number of Jewish newcomers who settled in historical Palestine upon the creation of Israel in 1948.
Erekat noted that his meetings with US civil society organizations and academic and parliamentary delegations that recently visited Palestine, showed there are movements in the US Senate and House of Representatives aimed at consolidating the two-state principle and supporting projects in Palestine whose funding was stopped by the Trump administration.
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