The Palestinian Authority, which governs the occupied West Bank, announced on Saturday that it would act immediately to cut ties with the U.S. after President Donald Trump unveiled a so-called peace plan that effectively allows Israel carte blanche to continue the occupation and theft of Palestinian land.
“We’ve informed the Israeli side … that there will be no relations at all with them and the United States including security ties,” Authority president Mahmoud Abbas told members of the Arab League in an emergency meeting called to assess options for the Palestinian people.
According to Reuters reporting:
The Arab League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo said the plan would not lead to a comprehensive and just peace, and that the League would not cooperate with the United States in implementing it.
The ministers affirmed Palestinian rights to create a future state based on the land captured and occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, with East Jerusalem as capital, the final communique said.
Foreign ministers from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, among others, said there could be no peace without recognizing Palestinian rights and a comprehensive solution.
Abbas also said he had refused to look at the plan or talk to Trump on the phone about it to avoid giving the U.S. president the ability to claim Abbas had been consulted.
“Trump asked that I speak to him by phone but I said ‘no,’ and that he wants to send me a letter,” said Abbas, “so I refused to receive it.”
As Common Dreams reported, the plan was panned by progressives, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, becoming the first major party top contender to call an end to the Israeli occupation.”
“Trump’s so-called ‘peace deal’ doesn’t come close, and will only perpetuate the conflict,” said Sanders. “It is unacceptable.”
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Eoin Higgins is senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams. Follow him on Twitter: @EoinHiggins.
