Officials in the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority warned U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday not to walk away from the so-called “two-state solution” to their seemingly endless conflict with Israel.
The president meets with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday.
The warning came in response to remarks by a senior White House official who said the United States will no longer impose any “solution” to peace on either party, but rather would support whatever deal the two sides reach together.
“A two-state solution that doesn’t bring peace is not our goal that anybody wants to achieve,” the official said at a White House briefing, according to several media sources. “Peace is the goal, whether it comes in the form of a two-state solution if that’s what the parties want or something else, if that’s what the parties want, we’re going to help them.”
Husam Zomlot, strategic affairs adviser to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, said in a phone interview with Reuters in Jerusalem, “The two-state solution is not something we just came up with. It is an international consensus and decision after decades of Israel’s rejection of the one-state democratic formula.”
Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was quoted as saying, “If the Trump Administration rejects this policy it would be destroying the chances for peace and undermining American interests, standing and credibility abroad,” in response to the U.S. official’s remarks.
“Accommodating the most extreme and irresponsible elements in Israel and in the White House is no way to make responsible foreign policy,” she added in a statement to the A-Sharq Al-Awsat English-language news site.