Erekat: US peace plan, not PA incitement, led to violence

Senior Palestinian Authority (PA) official Saeb Erekat on Friday rejected US allegations that PA incitement led to a day of violence in the region, claiming that the Trump administration’s so-called “Deal of the Century” led to the violence.

“Those who introduce plans for annexation and apartheid and the legalization of occupation and settlements are the ones who bear full responsibility for deepening the cycle of violence and extremism,” Erekat said in a statement quoted by The Associated Press.

He was responding to remarks by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and the architect of the peace plan, who said PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas was responsible for the latest violence.

“He does have a responsibility for it,” Kushner told reporters in New York on Thursday, adding, “He calls for days of rage in response and he said that even before he saw the plan.”

“I think that he was surprised with how good the plan was for the Palestinian people but he locked himself into a position before it came out and I don’t know why he did that,” continued Kushner.

“There is a long history of the Palestinian leadership paying the families of terrorists, inciting intifadas when they don’t get their way,” he said. “I just think the international community has grown very tired of that behavior.”

Erakat said Abbas will soon bring his own plan to the Security Council, one that he said is rooted in international law and based on a two-state solution along the pre-1967 lines.

Abbas rejected the US peace plan outright, stating that the plan would be relegated to the “dustbin of history.”

The PA chairman will travel to the United Nations next week to push for a Security Council resolution condemning Trump’s peace proposals, though that resolution will more than likely be vetoed by the US.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)