Dr. Saeb Erekat, Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, confirmed that the Palestinian Authority has a practical plan to confront the planned Israeli annexation of about 30% of the occupied West Bank that includes settlements, Area C and the Jordan Valley. .
"This plan includes strengthening existing Palestinian institutions and preparing them to deal with all the possibilities and challenges that will arise from annexing Israel," Erekat said in a video conference organized by the "Arab Center in Washington", on Wednesday, in which he tackled a range of topics that included the expected Palestinian, Arab and international responses regarding the annexation. Of the occupied territories, and responding to them, "including ensuring that the needs of the various Palestinian citizens are met, stressing that the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization have taken the lead in anticipating Israeli plans to activate an apartheid regime against the Palestinians through annexation, through consultations with more than 132 countries and asking these countries to take Concrete punitive measures against Israel if the annexation is activated.
Erekat pointed out that Israel aims to make its illegal practices of occupation, including annexation, aggression crimes and the colonial settlement project defined by the Rome Charter establishing the International Criminal Court as a described war crime, warning that the Israeli occupation authorities will demolish the current apartheid wall, and will construct instead A larger and higher wall of it devours Palestinian lands, cuts Palestinians apart and strengthens the apartheid regime.
He stressed that "there will be no peace without full respect for the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to self-determination," warning that Palestine is under the threat of further annexation, which means stealing more Palestinian land and plundering more natural resources, And controlling borders, airspace and maritime borders, strengthening the system of apartheid in the twenty-first century, in exchange for denying Palestine´s right to exist, and eliminating the possibilities of a two-state solution that requires an immediate deterrence, confirming that the Palestinian Authority has advanced in this context with an alternative plan for the "Quartet of the Middle East" ".
It is noteworthy that the International Quartet, sometimes called the Quartet Diplomatic Committee or Madrid Quartet or only the Quartet, is a supreme international committee in the peace process in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict consisting of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, established in the Spanish capital Madrid in 2002 at the initiative of the President Spanish Minister Jose Maria Aznar at the time, has been absent from view in the last ten years, due to the successive American administrations in managing the helm of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations since that time, which has not marginalized international roles in the "peace process".
In his dialogue, Erekat stressed that the authority will not be part of the continuation of the occupation, noting that "the head of the Israeli occupation government, Benjamin Netanyahu, wants to turn the authority into a weak authority."
He pointed out that the Palestinian National Authority was born by a contractual agreement between the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Israeli occupation, which the world witnessed as a function of transferring the Palestinian people from occupation to independence, pointing out that the one who identified this contractual characteristic was four pillars mentioned in the Oslo agreement, ruling out the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority.
According to Erekat, “Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump want to convert the Palestinian Authority’s function into a service authority that provides services, in order to perpetuate the occupation and serve the concept of the state with two systems. , They call it a state if they like, "showing through the video" a map of Palestine according to the deal of the century "that was published on January 28th if the Palestinians demonstrate the merit in managing this state.
"The deal of the century is not new," Erekat said. "It is 100% of the Netanyahu plan that was presented to us previously. All the American team did: Jared Kushner, David Friedman and Jason Greenblatt is publishing the Netanyahu plan."
He continued: "The authority, according to Netanyahu, will collapse and be destroyed, because its function is related to the right to self-determination and independence, and he wants to destroy self-determination and destroy the two-state solution and the rights of the Palestinian people, and therefore he will destroy the authority, and if he accepts the annexation, he will assume his full responsibilities pursuant to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949." Stressing that the Palestinians will leave to Israel the responsibility of not trash and act as an occupying force, adding that if Netanyahu now decides to annex the settlement (Ma’aleh Adumim) for example, this means that he decided the fate of Jerusalem, and thus became out of negotiations.
Erekat warned that "Israel aims to make its illegal occupation practices normal, including annexation, aggression crimes and the colonial settlement project defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as a prescribed war crime."
On the upcoming American elections, Erekat said: The Palestinian Authority is interested in the American elections between President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden, noting that if Biden is elected, the Palestinians expect the new president to reopen the American consulate in East Jerusalem, and to reopen the office of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Washington, and restore Palestinian-American relations to what they were before the 2016 US presidential elections.
Erekat refuted Israel´s allegations regarding normalization with the Arab countries, stressing that all Arab countries reject the annexation and consider it an implementation of a war crime that will entail the future of relations in the region.
On the one-state solution, Erekat described this as possible, as "there is nothing wrong with that. The Jews, Muslims and Christians coexisted for centuries in security and peace."
Erekat denounced the positions of the American missionary Christian right in support of the Israeli occupation and annexation, asking: "Why do they insist on using Christ against us as Palestinians?"
Erekat also defended the context of negotiations that the Palestinians fought over 30 years, stressing that the negotiation with Israel was not a mistake, but rather was for the sake of reaching an agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis based on a two-state solution on the territories of 1967, and East Jerusalem the capital of the independent Palestinian state, according to International legitimacy and international law, and a just solution to the Palestinian refugee issue.
At the end of his seminar via satellite, Erekat stressed that there will be no peace without full respect for the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to self-determination, warning that "the threat of Palestine to the threat of further annexation would steal more Palestinian land, and pillage more From natural resources, controlling borders and airspace, and maritime borders, and strengthening the system of apartheid in the twenty-first century, in exchange for denying Palestine´s right to exist, and eliminating the possibilities of a two-state solution, which requires immediate deterrence.
