PLO Secretary-General: Nation-State Law destroys two-state solution

The Palestinians, he said, are planning to present the ICC with an opinion paper concerning the law and US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
Updated: JULY 24, 2018 09:09
Knesset passes controversial Jewish nation-state bill into law, July 19, 2018 (Reuters)
The Palestinians are planning to ask the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the United Nations to take action against Israel over the Nation-State Law that was approved by the Knesset last week, PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat said on Monday.
He said that the Palestinians were currently holding contacts with world countries to “inform them about the gravity of this law.”
The Palestinians, he said, are planning to present the ICC with an opinion paper concerning the law and US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Erekat, who was speaking to reporters in Ramallah, said that the Palestinians would also submit a request to the UN General Assembly to see whether Israel was entitled to keep its membership in the international body in the aftermath of the Nation-State Law.
Erekat accused the US of serving as Israel’s “full partner” in the new law.
He said that Trump’s yet-to-be-announced plan for peace in the Middle East, which is also known as the “deal of the century” or the “ultimate deal,” has begun with the US president’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
As part of Trump’s unseen plan, Erekat claimed, the US administration has decided to cut funds to  the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) so as to “remove the issue of Palestinian refugees from the negotiating table [with Israel].”
“A question mark hangs over Israel’s membership in the UN,” he added. “We have instructed our ambassador to the UN to ask the UN Office of Legal Affairs whether [Trumps’ decisions and the Nation-State Law] contradicted all what the UN has done to achieve peace, stability, coexistence and a peaceful settlement.”
The Nation-State Law “has torpedoed all UN resolutions adopted since 1949, and the issue is no longer one of two states for two peoples,” the top PLO official said. “There is no right to self-determination for our people, not in the 1948 lands and not in the 1967 lands. The Jew will decide the fate of the Palestinian people, and this is an actual implementation of the Balfour Declaration.”
Erekat warned that the new law would “transform the conflict from a par excellence political conflict into a par excellence religious conflict.”
He also lashed out at Trump’s senior advisor Jared Kushner and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, saying it was “shameful that they are peace envoys because they believe in an ideology that is based on a national state for the Jewish people.”
Erekat said that the new law also “legitmizes settlements and legalizes ethnic cleansing, aims at destroying the two-state solution and replacing it with Apartheid, and turning the conflict into a religious conflict.”


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