Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas on Tuesday urged the UN Security Council to reject President Donald Trump’s Middle East plan, saying it would splinter Palestinian lands and never bring lasting peace.
Brandishing a large map of a future Palestine as laid out by Trump, Abbas denounced it as a “Swiss cheese” deal that would give the Palestinians only a “fragmented state” without control of their airspace, territorial waters or East Jerusalem.
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“Who among you would accept such a state?” Abbas asked as he warned that Israel would create an “apartheid” situation if it moves ahead with annexation.
According to the diplomatic sources, Tunisia’s President Kais Saied was worried that Baati’s expressions of support for the Palestinians would damage Tunisia’s relations with the United States.
On Thursday, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, briefed the Security Council on the US plan.
The draft no longer calls for an international conference on the Middle East “at the earliest possible date,” instead, replacing that language with a reminder that such a call was made in a 2008 UN resolution.
On January 28, President Trump unveiled his long-awaited Middle East peace plan, envisaging a two-state solution but keeping Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital.
According to the diplomats, the United States has put heavy pressure, including threats of financial repercussions, on Security Council members and that even some European nations were hesitant.
However, the Palestinian leader has won a show of support as he met in New York with Netanyahu’s predecessor Ehud Olmert, who said that any negotiations needed to involve Abbas.
The Palestinians previously won support from the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the African Union which have all rejected Trump’s plan.
On Tuesday, the four European Union members of the Security Council — France, Germany, Belgium and Estonia — as well as Poland, which left the council at the end of last year, jointly said that any Middle East solution needs to be based on lines before 1967 when Israel seized the West Bank in the Six-Day War.
Under the plan, Jerusalem will remain Israel’s “undivided capital,” Trump said, raising eyebrows after he had said that the capital of the Palestinian state would be in “eastern Jerusalem,” where the United States would “proudly open an embassy.”
The plan builds on a 30-page economic plan for the West Bank and Gaza that was unveiled last June and which the Palestinians have also rejected.
(With inputs from agency)