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Ashrawi: Global community must defend Palestine against ‘rogue’ states

March 5, 2019 at 3:21 pm

Member of PLO’s Executive Committee Hanan Ashrawi, 28 December 2018 [Wikipedia]

Veteran Palestinian politician, Hanan Ashrawi, has criticised US President Donald Trump over his “hostility” towards the Palestinian cause and aligning his policies with “rogue states and racist elements in Israel”.

PLO Executive Committee member Ashrawi said: “The Trump Administration is intent on leaving no room for doubt about its hostility towards the Palestinian people and their inalienable rights as well as its abject disregard for international law and its obligations under the law.”

Writing on Sunday on the eve of the scheduled merging of the US Consulate in Jerusalem with the US Embassy to Israel, she issued a statement on behalf of the PLO Executive Committee. She stated that merging the US Consulate in Jerusalem with the US Embassy to Israel – illegally located in Jerusalem – was an act of political assault on Palestinian rights and identity and a negation of the consulate’s historic status and function, dating back nearly 200 years.

Ashrawi said Trump was positioning the US with “rogue states that have no regard for international law or respect for the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force, a founding principle of the international order as we know it”. In her remarks, which appear to be an indirect criticism of Israel, Ashrawi added: “This merger is as much an affront to the international community and the principles of the United Nations Charter as it is an offensive political assault on the Palestinian people, motivated by racism and hostility and driven by a policy of omission and negation of historical and political truths.”

Condemning the US policy she continued:

We consider this a wilful reinforcement of an irresponsible and hostile US policy that aims to undermine and negate Palestinian national rights and identity by way of political bullying and aggression.

“These destabilising actions and policies preclude any possible positive role for the current US administration in seeking peace and stability.”

Ashrawi denounced Trump’s policies as a “a threat to international peace, security and undermine the standing of the international order” and called on the international community to “rise to the serious challenge posed by these policies” and to “defend[ing] Palestinian rights, as enshrined and affirmed by international law” which she insisted “is part and parcel of defending the moral, legal, and political standing of international politics. It is a global responsibility.”

READ: The merger of the US consulate and embassy in Jerusalem completes the humiliation of the Palestinians