PA source: US demanding that PA avoid ‘difficult’ decisions
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan reiterated Wednesday night during his meeting with Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas that the US is committed to a two-state solution, and stressed the importance of joint action between all parties to advance peace and stability in the region.
Protesters in Gaza City chanting anti-Israel slogans in solidarity with the Arabs in Jerusalem. Gaza, 2021. Photo by Majdi Fathi/TPS
Abbas said at the meeting that unilateral measures on Israel’s part and those that undermine the two-state solution should be stopped and that a diplomatic process be pursued in accordance with international decisions.
He asked the US adviser to intervene to stop the alegged “settler attacks” on Palestinians, to honour the status quo in Al-Aqsa mosques, to stop the supposed expulsion of Arab residents from eastern Jerusalem and to stop cuts by Israel of funds it transfers to the PA, due to the latter’s conduct of paying salaries to terrorist prisoners.
A spokesman for the Palestinian presidency said that Abbas raised the need to fulfil the American commitment to open the consulate in Jerusalem. In addressing this, Sullivan confirmed that the Biden administration is committed to all the promises it has made and that it is working very hard to achieve results on all of these issues.
The spokesman for the presidency also said that the National Security Adviser had informed the Israeli prime minister that President Biden was committed to a two-state solution and wanted to reopen the US consulate in eastern Jerusalem, and objected to all settlement measures.
A PA source who met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in May again told TPS that the latter had unequivocally pledged that “the United States is committed to opening the consulate in Jerusalem, within months.”
A source in Ramallah claims that the Americans have repeated a series of demands from the PA, including refraining from making “difficult” decisions and establishing a government of technocrats.
“The Palestinian-American meeting yesterday focused on several issues and also the need to replace the Palestinian government with a ‘technocratic’ expert government and to refrain from making difficult decisions soon, at the convening of the PLO Central Council, which will discuss withdrawal from the agreements and from the recognition of Israel,” he said.
The PA presidential spokesman said “the president and leadership will receive nothing less than an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital” and added that the Central Council “will make important and historic decisions, and may be heading for an important turning point in light of the Israeli government’s blockade of the diplomatic option.”
A source in Ramallah clarified that so far the PA has refused to form an expert government and is still clinging to the possibility of forming a unity government with Hamas, if it recognizes international agreements.
Palestinian officials have recently said that the US is also demanding that the PA stop paying salaries to terrorist prisoners and reform it in a way that ” the salary is not interpreted as a grant that encourages terrorism.”
There is a long argument on a two state solution that does not accept that the two states as envisioned under the Balfour declaration were states either side of the River Jordan; that is Jordan and Israel if another state is created then it is a three state solution and not a two state solution.
if they get the additional state will the claims end; I think not as there will again run the argument of a further two state solution until there is no Israel.