RAMALLAH, Palestine, Sept 9 (NNN-WAFA) – Senior Palestinian officials urged the U.S. to reconsider its strategy towards the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in the wake of the resignation of U.S. Middle East peace envoy, Jason Greenblatt.
Member of Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party and Civil Affairs Minister, Hussein Al-Sheikh, said, “Greenblatt’s resignation requires that the U.S. administration reconsidered its policy towards the Palestinian-Israeli conflict after its failure.”
Al-Shaikh accused the U.S. of “destroying the peace path and the choice of negotiations, by its total bias towards Israel,” urging it to return to international legitimacy resolutions, that call for ending the occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Greenblatt announced his resignation Friday, after almost three years of working on a U.S. peace plan for the region, also known as the “Deal of the Century.”
The U.S. administration said, it will announce its Middle East plan, after the Israeli elections on Sept 17.
Avi Berkowitz was announced to replace Greenblatt. Berkowitz, 30, graduated from Harvard’s law school in 2016, was the assistant of U.S. president, Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Member of Palestine Liberation Organisation executive committee, Bassam Salhi, told official Palestinian radio earlier that “the problem does not lie in the persons, but in the U.S. policy in contrast to international references.”
Salhi added, the “the U.S. administration is in complete harmony with the notions of far right in Israel, to resolve the Palestinian cause on the basis of consolidation of facts on the ground and the rejection of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the borders of 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
The Palestinian Authority declared boycott of the U.S. government after it recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017, and moved its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in May 2018.
The United States has taken several steps against the Palestinians, including shutting down the PLO office in Washington and stopping funding for the only UN agency providing support to Palestinian refugees.
Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, repeatedly called for an international multilateral mechanism to oversee the peace process.– NNN-WAFA
