PA to launch campaign against US peace plan

Nabil Shaath, international relations adviser to Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas, said on Thursday that the PA will launch a campaign to counter the US peace plan, known as the “Deal of the Century”, reported the Xinhua news agency.

The campaign will target “the crime and conspiracy that aim at liquidating the Palestinian cause under the so-called century deal,” said Shaath in a statement.

He added that “we’ve seen this plan advancing through the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, disregarding the Palestinian refugees issue, and recognizing Israeli settlements and Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.”

Shaath said that “all steps taken by US President Donald Trump proved that the deal is nothing but a conspiracy to liquidate the Palestinian cause.”

His comments follow a report on Wednesday which said that the Trump administration’s peace plan will be unveiled after Israel forms a governing coalition and after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ends in early June.

US Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, who has been working on the plan with Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, later confirmed the report, tweeting a link to it and adding, “This is an accurate report”.

The PA, which has been boycotting the US ever since Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December of 2017, has rejected the US peace plan before it has even been unveiled.

On Tuesday, new PA cabinet leader Mohammad Shtayyeh said in an interview that the Trump administration’s peace plan will be “born dead”.

“There are no partners in Palestine for Trump. There are no Arab partners for Trump and there are no European partners for Trump,” Shtayyeh told The Associated Press.