‘WE ARE already at the height of the process of mapping the area that, according to the Trump plan, will become part of the state of Israel. It won’t take too long’, Netanyahu told an election campaign rally in the illegal Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim on Saturday. The Israeli elections are less than three weeks away.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas immediately hit back, stating defiantly: ‘The only map that can be accepted as the map of Palestine is the map of the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital.’
At the rally Netanyahu said the area would include all Israeli settlements and the Jordan Valley in the West Bank, an area that Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, which Palestinians want for their future state.
Trump’s so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ rejected by all Palestinians, the Arab League and campaign groups worldwide.
Trump’s deal recognises settlements and Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley.
A redrawn, ‘demilitarised Palestinian state’ would be subject to Israeli control over its security, and would receive tracts of desert in return for arable land settled by Israelis.
Right after Trump presented the plan on January 28, Netanyahu said his government would begin extending Israeli sovereignty to the settlements and the Jordan Valley within days.
Netanyahu stressed that the Trump administration would back his annexation plans.
‘Don’t be mistaken, the Americans will go along with this, President Trump will go along with this,’ he said.
Netanyahu also hailed a series of pro-Israel measures taken by the Trump administration, including the recognition of Jerusalem al-Quds as the Israeli ‘capital,’ the relocation of the American embassy from Tel Aviv to the occupied city, the recognition of Israeli ‘sovereignty’ over Syria’s Golan Heights and the ‘legalisation’ of Israeli settlements.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh addressed the African Union Summit held yesterday in Addis Ababa.
‘The American plan gives Jerusalem completely to the Israelis and appropriates 40% of the land of the State of Palestine. The plan provides for illegally maintaining the Jewish settlements with about 720,000 settlers on our lands which Israel seized by force and coercion,’ Shtayyeh told the summit yesterday, held under the theme Silencing the Guns: Creating Conducive Conditions For Africa’s Development.
The Prime Minister, who spoke on behalf of President Mahmoud Abbas, reiterated the Palestinian people’s rejection of the recently unveiled US-sponsored peace plan, the ‘Deal of the Century’, which he said ‘does not meet the minimum level of justice and rights for our people, nor does it honour the true meaning of Palestinian sovereignty and freedom over the border crossings.’
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