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PA: Israel has to choose between two-states or demographic meltdown

November 10, 2020 at 11:05 am

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh in Ramallah, West Bank on 9 June 2020 [Issam Rimawi/Anadolu Agency]

Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said yesterday that Israel has to choose between the two-state solution or a demographic meltdown, Wafa news agency reported.

“The Israeli occupation government must stop its colonial plans and stop seizing our lands and building thousands of settlement units,” said Shtayyeh.

Illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are the enemy of peace, he said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting held in Ramallah.

The number of settlers in the Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem, has now reached more than 750,000, and they constitute 25 per cent of the total population of the occupied West Bank, he said.

He added: “It is time for Israel to choose between the two-state solution or demographic meltdown,” noting that for the first time since 1948, Palestinians in all historical Palestine – Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip – outnumber the Israeli Jewish population by more than 250,000 people.

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Shtayyeh called on European countries and the rest of the world to take a step towards breaking the status quo and recognise the State of Palestine in order to force Israel to stop its settlement plans, annexation, home demolitions, the Judaisation of Jerusalem and isolation of Gaza.

“The world is required to stand with the freedom of our people, end the occupation and get Israel to pay the price of its continuous aggression against our people,” he said.