You Will Anyway: Trump administration moves on Palestine

Saturday, November 18, 2017

Trump administration moves on Palestine

After Israel's Jerusalem affairs minister called for a million Jewish settlers to occupy the West Bank, the US is reportedly putting Palestine on notice. Its Washington office may be closed unless it enters into serious peace talks with Israel.

RT

Like insisting victims of sexual assault make nice with their rapists.

The Trump administration decided to take action against the PLO after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas spoke at the United Nations in September and called on the ICC to open an investigation, and to charge Israeli officials “for their involvement in settlement activities and aggressions against our people.”

[...]

Under the 2015 Consolidated Appropriations Act [an obscure US law], the PLO is not allowed to initiate an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation, or actively support an ICC investigation that “subjects Israeli nationals to an investigation for alleged crimes against Palestinians.”

Wow. I was unaware such a dastardly law existed. And how can the US make a law regarding a Palestinian organization? Violation of it apparently allows the US to close the PLO office in Washington. Honestly, they may as well. Palestine never gets any breaks from the US anyway.

President Donald Trump will have 90 days to decide whether to permanently close the PLO’s office or waive the law if he determines the Palestinians “have entered into direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel.”

I hope they answer him with the middle finger.

Current efforts to broker a peace deal between Israel and Palestine are being headed up by Trump’s son-in-law and senior aide, Jared Kushner.

Jared is Jewish. No problem there.

Speaking at the “On the Way to a Million” conference in Jerusalem on Tuesday, Israel's Jerusalem affairs minister, Ze'ev Elkin, dismissed the the idea of a sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank, using Arabic slang to make his point clearer. “Halas’ [enough] with the story of two states. There is no other option but the state of Israel, certainly between the Jordan [River] to the sea there will be one state,” Elkin said.

Instead, Elkin called on a million Jewish settlers to occupy the West Bank, which he said would require constructing 100,000-120,000 apartments per year, compared with the 2,934 that were built in 2016.

How are the Palestinians expected to enter into "serious peace talks" with that?

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