US THREAT TO CLOSE PLO OFFICE ‘BLACKMAIL’
▶ Palestinian leaders condemn US pressure over bid to prosecute Israel
Palestinian leaders yesterday denounced as “blackmail” a threat to close the Palestine Liberation Organisation office in Washington.
The US threat was made in response to Palestine’s calls for Israel to be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court over its illegal settlements.
“If they want to suspend official relations with the Palestinians, if they want to close the office, that certainly would disqualify them from any role in peacemaking,” PLO spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi told The National.
“How can they make peace if they boycott official contact with the Palestinians? If they think they can blackmail us into more concessions, what concessions exactly do they want?”
She said such a move by the US “would only be encouraging and supporting Israeli impunity”.
PLO executive committee member Wasel Abu Yusuf said: “We can’t accept this effort to frighten us or impose conditions on the Palestinian people.
“Talk of closing the office is completely rejected. There will be no change in our policy. We will not withdraw from our position toward the ICC or any position that supports freedom and independence for our people.”
US officials said the Trump administration had on Friday put the Palestinian leadership on notice that it would close the PLO office in Washington unless it entered serious peace talks with Israel, Associated Press reported.
The move, which comes as the administration is formulating a new Middle East peace initiative, follows a determination by US secretary of state Rex Tillerson that the Palestinians violated an obscure provision in US law.
According to the provision, the PLO office must close if the Palestinian leadership tries to get the International Criminal Court to prosecute Israel for alleged crimes against the Palestinians.
The law gives the US president leeway to keep the office open, however, if he determines the Palestinians are in “direct and meaningful negotiations” with Israel.
Palestinian foreign minister Riyad Al Malki said yesterday that the Palestinian Authority had received a letter from the US state department two days before that said Mr Tillerson
had not found enough reasons to keep the office open, Agence France-Presse reported.
“This has not happened in the past, and we have demanded clarifications from the state department and the White House,” he told AFP. “They told us that there would be a meeting of senior legal experts on Monday. Then they would give a clear answer.”
In September, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said at the UN General Assembly that the Palestinians had called on the ICC to investigate and prosecute Israeli officials for “their involvement in settlement activities and aggressions against our people”.
Ms Ashrawi said Mr Abbas was only asking the ICC to do its job of holding violators of international law to account. She stressed that the Palestinians have not yet referred any actual cases to the ICC.
“The US doesn’t object to Israel violating international law and destroying the foundations of peace, but it objects to a statement by the president that Israel has to be held to account by the ICC. It lacks any logic,” she said.
“Sometimes in their overzealousness to do Israel’s bidding or support Israel blindly they can make serious mistakes that can affect American interests and the prospects of peace. They flex their muscles against someone with little if anything to lose, but when it comes to the occupying power, to the stronger party, to the oppressor, to the party that’s violating international law all the time, somehow they bend over backward to accommodate and reward.
“When it comes to the Palestinians it’s constantly the stick and pressure and blackmail.”
Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon had no immediate comment on the US threat, which was expected to please the government of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel has stepped up settlement construction across the West Bank since the Trump administration took office.
Settlement activity is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which bans an occupying power from moving its nationals into occupied territory. Unlike the Obama administration, the Trump administration has refrained from criticising the Israeli practice.
Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian Authority minister who is currently vice president of the West Bank’s Bir Zeit University, predicted that Mr Abbas would not change his policy towards the ICC as a result of the threat.