OIC rejects Trump’s ‘peace plan’  

A meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Jeddah has today emphatically rejected Trump’s Middle East plan, and called “on all member states to not engage with this plan or cooperate with the US administration’s efforts to enforce it in any way or form.”

The pan-Islamic body, which is the second largest intergovernmental organisation after the UN, said it in a statement today that it “rejects this US-Israeli plan, as it does not meet the minimum aspirations and legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, and contradicts the terms of reference of the peace process.”

The ministerial-level meeting, which has representation from all 57 member states apart from Iran, after Saudi Arabia refused to issue visas to the country’s diplomats, takes place two days after the Arab League rejected the deal.

The open-ended extraordinary meeting later adopted a resolution to express concerns over “the flagrant violation of the principles of international law” and called “upon the American administration to abide by the internationally agreed on legal terms of reference for a just, lasting and comprehensive peace”.

READ: Peace plans have no function except to serve Israel’s colonial takeover of Palestine

The organisation said the resolution maintains previous stances, with a continued commitment to “ending the colonial Israeli occupation of the State of Palestine”.

The plan, which Trump has called the “deal of the century” envisions the creation of a Palestinian state in approximately 70 per cent of the West Bank, most of the Gaza Strip and small pockets of land in southern Israel. Jerusalem, the historic capital of Palestine, would “remain Israel’s undivided capital”, Trump said during the unveiling of the deal in Washington on Tuesday.

Lebanese Foreign Minister, Nassif Hitti, speaking in Jeddah today rejected the deal saying: “The proposals made under the title of peace are solutions based on a quasi-Palestinian semi-sovereign statelet and on some Palestinian lands, while seeking to add legitimacy to the [Israeli] occupation and ignore legal principles and international resolutions.”

Despite being unable to appear at the conference in Jeddah, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called the deal a “delusional” plan, while foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said the “treason of the century” plan is “doomed to failure”.

READ: The apartheid deal of the century

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Benny Gantz, who were both present in Washington for the unveiling of the deal, openly welcomed it. With Netanyahu calling the plan a “win-win solution” for both parties, “a great plan for Israel…. [and] a great plan for peace”.

Palestinian leaders were not present during the announcement of the deal in Washington, with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas later announcing from Cairo “that there will be no relations with you [Israel] and the United States, including on security cooperation”.

US presidential adviser, Jared Kushner, said yesterday, that if the Palestinian Authority could not accept the conditions of the deal then “I don’t think we can get Israel to take the risk to recognise them as a state”.