The Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), Yasser Abed Rabbo, stated on Wednesday that the Palestinian leadership is refusing the framework agreement being proposed by US Secretary of State John Kerry, which stipulates the establishment of a non-viable Palestinian state while maintaining the illegal settlements and recognising Israel as a Jewish state.
Abed Rabbo said in a joint press conference with several other PLO members that the proposed framework agreement demands that the Palestinians recognise Israel’s Jewish identity while serving Israel’s expansionist demands and granting it control over the border crossings, airspace and communications.
The PLO leader warned that the political process has hit an impasse, and that: “The Israeli government insists on making demands that it knows very well neither the Palestinian leadership nor the Palestinian people will ever accept. Israel wants to build a wall in the Jordan Valley similar to the annexation wall it has built in the West Bank, and to maintain the settlement blocs, which have an area that the US mediator does not even know the extent of as they are expanding on daily basis.”
Abed Rabbo further explained that: “When Israel demands for the Palestinians to recognise it as a Jewish state, it also demands for them to abolish their historical narrative and to embrace the historical narrative about a state that [expands so rapidly that] we do not even know its borders. Jerusalem has had the same fate. It has been annexed and Judaised.”
“Which Palestinian state are you even talking about?” Abed Rabbo asked, stressing that “this would be a state without borders or crossings or a capital.”
In response to the current stalemate, Abed Rabbo announced that the PLO Executive Committee has been entrusted to start preparing for Palestine to join international organisations; although no date has been specified for this as yet. The committee will also look for a new international patron for the political process since the American sponsor has failed to move the talks forward.
On the same subject, another Palestinian source told China’s Xinhua news agency that, “The Palestinian leadership has decided to appeal to the United Nations as soon as the ongoing peace talks under the auspices of the US meet the April 2014 deadline.”
Meanwhile, PLO Executive Committee member Tayseer Khaled noted that: “The US and Israel both agree on two points. The first is to recognise Israel’s Jewish identity and to abandon the Palestinian refugees’ right of return. If the Palestinians agreed to recognise Israel as a Jewish State, they would agree to endorse the Israeli historical narrative and to abandon both the Palestinian refugees and the Palestinian citizens of Israel of their rights. The American vision to resolve the refugees’ problem is based on the suggestions of former US President Bill Clinton. Clinton had proposed that the refugees should either return to a future Palestinian state or settle in their current whereabouts, or choose to settle in a third country. Israel does not recognise its responsibility towards the Palestinian refugees and leaves the international community responsible for resolving it.”
Source: Al Quds