PLO 'ambassador' to US says no immediate plans for unilaterial actions
The PLO's 'ambassador' to the United States, Maen Areikat, tells the Jerusalem Post that the 'Palestinian Authority' has no immediate plans to take unilateral action regarding the establishment of a 'Palestinian state.'“We’re not talking about any time frame,” he said of the possibility of bringing a unilateral declaration of statehood forward. “We’re still waiting for the US administration efforts to hopefully succeed in overcoming the difficulties and convince the Israeli side [in hopes] that an agreement would emerge.”The key here is that they're walking back the unilateral action in light of US opposition (see Hillary Clinton's statements about negotiations being the only way last week). So long as the US sticks to that position, the 'Palestinians' will not try to move forward unilaterally. But will the US continue to stand by Israel and oppose 'Palestinian' unilateralism? Maybe.
He added that the Palestinian leadership would coordinate any unilateral statehood bid with the Arab countries and other members of the international community.
“It has to be coordinated in a way that will enjoy the support of the international community for it to work,” he explained.
But at earlier comments he made at conference on US-Arab relations, he said that there is a “serious debate” going on within the Palestinian and wider Arab society about pursuing steps beyond negotiations with Israel out of a feeling that 17 years of on-and-off again talks haven’t produced a Palestinian state.
“Today I think we are at the juncture where we really have to contemplate and to explore other venues, of course short of violence, to try to deal with this issue and this debate is ongoing,” he said.
During his comments, he also described Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s call for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state in exchange for him extending the freeze as a “political maneuver.”
Areikat summed up the Palestinian attitude as, “Once again the Israelis are negotiating with themselves. He’s trying to appeal to the extreme to the right-wing elements of his government, of his society.”
He said that the PA has already recognized Israel, and that “We feel we have done enough in this regard.”
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:16 AM
1 Comments:
I have a feeling that will depend on the outcome of the election in November.
The Palestinians are right though on one thing: Israeli Jews are negotiating among themselves, as they always have, as to how much can be safely ceded to the Arabs. The various trial balloons we've seen launched in the Israeli media are in that spirit.
At the end of the day though, there will be no peace deal because the Palestinians don't want one.
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