The US administration’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan risks actually destroying the potential for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, a prominent Palestinian lawmaker told Euronews.
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The US administration’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan risks destroying the potential for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, a prominent Palestinian lawmaker told Euronews ahead of its presentation.
Israel has hailed the plan as historic, but the Palestinians preemptively rejected it, accusing the Trump administration of being biased in favour of Israel.
“In reality, this is not a plan for peace, it's a plan to kill the possibility of peace based on a two-state solution,” said Mustafa Barghouti, a Central Council member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the umbrella political group that claims to represent the world’s Palestinians.
“It's an Israeli plan, prepared by Mr Netanyahu, in an American envelope,” Barghouti told Euronews.
Ahead of its presentation, media reports speculated Trump's plan could include the possible annexation of swathes of territory that the Palestinians seek for a future independent state of their own.
The New York Times reported it could give Israel sovereignty over much of the Jordan Valley, where the Israeli army began deploying more troops just hours before the plan was presented.
Such a move, Barghouti warned, would cause “a lot of anger” not only among Palestinians but more broadly among Arabs and the international community.
Protests were already planned in the Palestinian territories for Tuesday and Wednesday (January 29), raising the chance of clashes with Israeli troops.
“Unfortunately, what the US is doing today is a dangerous process of killing so much of what has been achieved in the past, within the framework of the peace process,” Barghouti said.
You can watch Barghouti’s full interview on Euronews Now – conducted before the plan was officially presented in Washington -- by clicking on the player above.