World Jewish News

Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour addresses the United Nations Security Council, at UN headquarters, January 22, 2019. (AP/Richard Drew)

PA asks Russia to counter Trump plan

The Palestinians are asking the European Union to pick up the mantle in defense of the two-state solution if the upcoming US peace plan ditches Palestinian statehood, their UN envoy said Tuesday.

US President Donald Trump’s administration is expected to unveil the long-awaited plan possibly as early as next month, but the Palestinians have already rejected it as heavily biased in favor of Israel.

Palestinian Authority ambassador Riyad Mansour told reporters that he urged European officials during recent meetings in Brussels to seize the initiative and not allow the United States to be the preeminent player in the Middle East peace process.

The Palestinians urged the EU to call for an international conference that would reaffirm the global consensus of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and reject the US approach.

“We are engaging them,” Mansour told reporters about his meetings with EU officials. “They have to act.”

“We would be extremely happy to show that there is more than one player in the field, trying to determine how we move forward.”

The Palestinians have also urged European countries – in particular France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Belgium and Luxembourg — to recognize Palestine as a state.

UN resolutions have advocated a two-state solution providing for an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, and stressed that this outcome is to be agreed by the parties.

Mansour said the Palestinians also wanted Russia to step up its Middle East diplomacy and suggested that the United Nations could convene the Middle East peace quartet.

The Quartet “at least is a collective process and not only one party … trying to decide how we move forward,” he said, and it can move things forward based on past agreed positions.

Mansour said the Palestinians appreciate the two international conferences hosted by France, “but they did not build on it and continue it” — and also Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer to host a summit between PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

So far, Mansour said, the Palestinians haven’t seen any results of its initiatives.

Mansour said US actions — including recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and cutting all funding for Palestinian refugees — and Netanyahu’s threat to annex Israeli settlements in the West Bank will not solve the decades-long conflict and lead to peace.

“Some in the (US) administration think, yes, what will help peace is break the legs of the Palestinians and one arm, and five teeth … and when they are on their faces on the ground crawling, they will come crawling to you for anything that you can offer them,” Mansour said.

The US peace plan, which Mansour said he has not seen, is expected to feature proposals for regional economic development that would include Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon but the Palestinians have been adamant that it will fail.

Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is the chief architect of the proposals.

Mansour said he was convinced that the Palestinians still enjoyed “massive support in the international arena,” but suggested that if diplomacy failed, the battle could then turn to demographics.

“If this is what they want to force on us — one-state reality — the Palestinian people will accelerate their reproduction machines and increase the number of Palestinians to face apartheid,” he said.

The Times of Israel