Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s long-anticipated letter to Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will include a warning that the two-state solution
could collapse unless Israel changes its current policies.
PA negotiator
and member of the Fatah Central Committee, Mohammed Shtayyeh, said that the
letter, which will be handed to Netanyahu by PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on
Tuesday, includes three central issues and serves as a final warning to
Israel.
First, the letter will note that Israel has not implemented
agreements signed with the PLO. Second, the letter will warn that if the
two-state solution dies, the two sides will be headed toward a one-state
solution.
Third, Abbas’s letter will detail the PA’s position regarding
various issues, such as Jerusalem, borders, settlements and
refugees.
Shtayyeh said that the letter will make it clear that the PA
leadership would not be able to “continue with the game called ‘negotiations’
while construction is continuing in the settlements.”
“Israel must choose
between negotiations and settlements,” he told the Qatari newspaper Al-Sharq.
“Israel’s measures on the ground show that it is interested only in maintaining
the status quo.”
Shtayyeh condemned moves in Congress to suspend
financial aid to the PA as “extortion.” The PA, he stressed, would not
succumb to blackmail.