Washington - Palestinian leaders confirmed they’d been informed by the Trump administration that it plans to shut the Palestinian mission in Washington, condemning the move as proof the US is disbanding international efforts towards a peace deal with the Israeli regime.
The announcement of the closure, earlier reported by the Wall Street Journal citing unidentified White House officials, was expected to be made in prepared remarks by National Security Adviser John Bolton, the paper reported. It is part of a widening US pressure campaign on Palestinian officials amid stalled Middle East peace prospects, it said.
“We have been notified by a US official of their decision to close the Palestinian Mission to the US,” Saeb Erekat, the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s secretary-general and longtime peace negotiator, said in a statement. It is a “dangerous escalation shows that the US is willing to disband the international system.”
The Palestinians found few friends in the Trump administration, and “such irresponsible moves are clear proof of American collusion with Israel’s occupation,” said PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi. “The US would do better to finally understand that the Palestinians will not surrender, and that no amount of coercion or unwarranted collective punitive measures will bring the Palestinian leadership or people to their knees.”
The US “will always stand with our friend and ally, Israel,” Bolton plans to say in his prepared remarks, the Journal reported, citing a draft it had reviewed. He also plans to threaten to impose sanctions against the International Criminal Court if it moves ahead with investigations of the US and Israel, the paper said. Actions the US could take include banning ICC judges and prosecutors from entering America.
“We will sanction their funds in the US financial system, and we will prosecute them in the US criminal system,” the paper reported Bolton was planning to say. “We will do the same for any company or state that assists an ICC investigation of Americans.”
The administration has said it’s trying a new approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after decades of failed peace talks, chipping away at the Palestinians’ key issues as it reshapes US policy. But Palestinian officials view the new administration as biased in the Israeli regime’s favour – and have cut contact with it.
Earlier this month, the administration halted funding of the United Nations agency that supports Palestinian refugees. UN ambassador Nikki Haley said the Palestinians’ major demand - for millions of their refugees and descendants to return to lost homes in Israel - should be ruled out, and called for increased pressure on Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The US has also moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem. That was a victory for Israel and a blow to the Palestinians, as it undermines their own claim to occupied east Jerusalem as capital of a future Palestinian state.
