Middle East Monitor / May 24, 2023
The Palestinian Authority prime minister said on Tuesday that Washington is running the Arab-Israeli conflict, not looking for solutions. Mohammad Shtayyeh also told the conference of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate that he laments the absence of the International Quartet of the UN, the US, the EU and Russia.
“There is a clear American absence,” he explained, stating that the White House has not proposed any peace initiative or sent any peace envoy for years. “This means that it is running the conflict, not looking to solve it”
Shtayyeh referred to the Quartet as “the umbrella of the solution of the Arab-Israeli struggle,” but lamented its absence at a time when “Israel is carrying out systematic crimes against the Palestinians, their land and trees, as well as reoccupying the West Bank.”
Israel, he added, is an occupying and settler power that created the Nakba for the Palestinian people in 1948. In closing, he reminded the journalists present that, “The Israeli sniper who killed journalist Shireen Abu Akleh intended to add her to the list of journalists who were murdered before her.”
