THE FUTURE of Palestine cannot be drawn up by the White House, Jared Kushner or anyone else, Palestinian presidential spokesman Abu Rudeineh insisted in a statement yesterday, to coincide with the start of the United States-sponsored conference in Bahrain where the so-called ‘deal of the century’ was unveiled.
All Palestinian factions have boycotted the event, slamming Washington for its attempt to offer financial rewards to Palestinians to accept the Israeli occupation.
People took to the streets in the Lebanese capital of Beirut to protest against the opening of the conference.
And schools, run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre and businesses there also closed, as the Palestinian refugees staged strikes and sit-ins in condemnation of the Bahrain conference and the wider plan.
Rallies were also held in the Palestinian refugee camps of the city in protest against the plan, and there were mass protests all across Palestine yesterday.
Rudeineh said: ‘The “Manama workshop” is designed to pave the way for the creation and expansion of an emirate in Gaza, separation of Gaza from the West Bank, and the Judaisation of Jerusalem.’
Rudeineh was reacting to US President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s comments, on the eve of the conference, that: ‘We all have to recognise that if there ever is a deal, it’s not going to be along the lines of the Arab peace initiative.
‘It will be somewhere between the Arab peace initiative and between the Israeli position.’
Rudeineh declared that the Arab Peace Initiative, adopted by the Arab summit in Beirut in 2002, is a redline that cannot be redrafted by Kushner or anyone else.
