Any just solution [for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] must recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of an independent Palestinian state, a spokesman of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas insisted on Friday.
“Tension and chaos will continue dominating the region and the world as long as the Palestinian issue remains unresolved,” Nabil Abu-Rudeineh told Wafa, the official Palestinian Authority news agency, adding:
“The international legitimacy, which recognized the state of Palestine in the UN General Assembly on November 29, 2012 and delegitimized the occupation, will alone create an appropriate atmosphere for resolving all the crises in the region and regain the balance of US-Arab relations.”
Gimmicks like keeping US embassy in Tel Aviv but Recognizing #Jerusalem as capital of #Israel will backfire. No #Palestinian authority – even this dysfunctional one- will negotiate final status. Gulf Arabs & Egypt,cannot deliver PA to negotiations. https://t.co/YJKtEx2x9j
— Hisham Melhem (@hisham_melhem) December 2, 2017
The PA official said that Abbas is still committed to a “just peace” based on the two-state solution, the Arab and international legitimacy and the Arab peace initiative. He noted that the region is facing “hard challenges” and it must not lose sight of the rights of the Palestinians in the middle of them all.
In a related issue, on Friday evening, Reuters and other news agencies reported an American official saying that President Donald Trump is to deliver a speech this week in which he might recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
During his electoral campaign, Trump pledged to move the US embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967 and has since annexed in a move unrecognized by most of the international community. However, the official said that the US President had not reached a final decision in this regard.
(MEMO, PC, Social Media)
