Palestinians around the world reject Trump’s Middle East peace initiative
PALESTINIANS around the world are uniting to thwart US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, former Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said, criticising Arab governments who supported the plan.
“We completely reject this deal and we are confident it will fail. But we will not wait for its failure, we will make it fail,” Meshaal said from his residence in Qatar’s capital, Doha.
Trump’s plan, unveiled alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, envisages a two-state solution with Israel and a future Palestinian state living alongside each other, but with strict conditions that Palestinians have baulked at.
He proposed a demilitarised Palestinian state, with borders drawn to meet Israeli security needs, while granting US recognition of Israeli settlements on occupied West Bank land and of Jerusalem as Israel’s indivisible capital.
Meshaal said Palestinians were talking with each other about how to mobilise against what Trump has called the “deal of the century”.
“The consensual Palestinian position is to reject it,” he said. “We have begun positive steps to unify the Palestinian side. God willing, it will cause this deal to fail.”
On Meshaal’s wall is a huge cityscape photograph of Jerusalem, prominently featuring the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, two Muslim holy places that Palestinians seek as part of the capital of a future state in the east of the city.
Trump’s plan diverges from previous US policy and a 2002 Arab League-endorsed initiative that offered Israel normal relations in return for an independent Palestinian state and full Israeli withdrawal from territory captured in a 1967 war.
Meshaal criticised certain Arab states for turning their back on the Palestinian cause in endorsing the proposal, saying this was “not an honourable position”.
At the plan’s unveiling, Trump publicly thanked the ambassadors of the Gulf states of Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates for their support of peace efforts and for attending the event.
Trump is going through an impeachment trial, and Netanyahu has been formally indicted in court on corruption charges.
Both men deny any wrongdoing. Netanyahu also faces a difficult election in March.