Middle East Monitor / September 4, 2020
Senior members of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) yesterday condemned Senior Adviser to US President Donald Trump Jared Kushner’s statement calling for Palestinians to appoint new leadership.
In separate statements to the Anadolu Agency, the leaders said Kushner’s statement “is incitement against the Palestinian leadership and an indicator for more exertion of pressure on it.”
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Kushner said the Palestinian people need a leadership “that can provide a better life.”
“There is a security plan for Palestinians and Israelis, and there is an offer on the table for the Palestinians. We hope they would reach out and accept it,” Kushner said, referring to Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ announced on 28 January, which includes the establishment of an entity which would fall short of a state for Palestinians and which declared Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital.
Bassem Al-Salihi, secretary-general of the Palestinian People’s Party and member of the Executive Committee of the PLO, said Kushner’s declaration is an attempt to carry on with the American-Israeli plot to end “the Palestinian people’s right and the PLO as their political representative”.
“What the US official declared is an allegation to cover up the Trump’s administration’s complicity with the occupation, and to disavow enforcement of internationally legitimate decisions,” he added.
“Had the Palestinian leadership accepted this treaty, it would not have deserved to lead its people, not the other way around,” he continued.
He pointed out that these declarations indicate Washington’s intention to exert more “pressure and incitement against the Palestinian leadership.”
Wasel Abu Yousef, secretary-general of the Arab Liberation Front, considered Kushner’s statements as an “attempt to destabilise the situation and incite against the Palestinian leadership”.
“The United States is exerting pressure on the Palestinian leadership for its rejection of the American project, the Trump Peace Treaty, and supports the policy of killing, demolition and arrest,” he said.
Abu Yousef stressed that “the Palestinian leadership adheres to all the rights of the Palestinian people, and it will not submit to such pressure.”
