Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said on Tuesday that if Israel annexes parts of Judea and Samaria, the Palestinian Authority would declare a state based on the pre-1967 lines and launch an international recognition campaign.
The campaign, he said, would include recognition of eastern Jerusalem as the state’s capital, reported Ynet.
Shtayyeh called annexation an “existential threat” for the PA Arabs.
Former senior U.S. officials told JNS earlier this month that it was unlikely that P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas would follow through on threats to cut ties with Israel, stop security cooperation and void past agreements if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues with his plan to apply Israeli law to the Jordan Valley and parts of Judea and Samaria.
According to Harold Rhode, a longtime former adviser on Islamic affairs within the U.S. Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment, Abbas’s threat to cut off security cooperation and end agreements with Israel is empty since it is in Abbas’s and other senior Palestinian officials’ interest to continue the cooperation.