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Erekat: We will not allow the return of US-brokered negotiations

December 14, 2015 at 12:04 pm

PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat said yesterday that “the US brokered bilateral negotiations have ended and we will no longer allow them. We want an international conference with the participation of permanent UN Security Council members, the EU, BRICS countries, and Arab states.”

Erekat’s comments came during a conference held yesterday in New York by Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The PLO official refused to mount the conference stage to give his speech until the Israeli flag was removed – a request that was eventually obliged.

“This international conference must have a specific goal, i.e. two states on the 1967 borders. There must be a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and it must be achieved in a specific time frame,” he said in his speech.

Erekat also stated that he recently met with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and former Foreign Minister and MK for the Zionist Union Tzipi Livni, who said that she supports the Israeli state, but not on all of Israel. He also refused to share the stage with them at the same time.

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“I want to congratulate Netanyahu for destroying the culture of peace and negotiation. Netanyahu is destroying the two-state solution and trying to build an apartheid system,” he added.

Erekat also went on to say: “Our conflict is not a religious conflict; Islam, Judaism, and Christianity are all Abrahamic religions. However, Netanyahu is trying to turn the conflict into a conflict between Netanyahu’s Jewish state and Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi’s Daesh.”

“What is the difference between a criminal and murderer who beheads people in Syria and Iraq and between a criminal who burned the child Ali Dawabsheh in Duma?” he asked.

Also read: Israel demands PA pay Dawabsheh medical costs

Erekat praised the EU for taking the decision to label settlement goods in accordance with international law. He also said that the settlements represent “colonial settlements that steal Palestinian natural resources and create an apartheid system deeper than that in South Africa.”

Erekat urged the American administration to stop treating Israel as if it were above the law. He also pointed out that Hamas is a Palestinian movement and that “we must join ranks in order to achieve an independent state with the sovereignty of law and legitimate arms. We must also form a national unity government and agree on holding general elections.”

“We will determine our security, political, and economic relations with Israel in accordance with the Palestinian Central Council resolutions because the current situation cannot go on,” he concluded.