Palestine: US Relations Resume When D.C. Committs to Peace

The Palestinian Authority says diplomatic relations with the United States can be resumed on the condition that Washington is committed to the peace process in the region.

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Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesperson for the government, said in a Thursday statement that the Palestinians have never rejected any negotiations or initiatives for Palestinian-Israeli peace.

"Peace can only be established in accordance to the two-state solution on the 1967 borders, the international resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative which considers East Jerusalem an occupied territory," stated Rudeineh.

The government representative was responding to recent remarks made by U.S. officials on achieving peace with Israel, according to Palestinian state media, WAFA.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), chaired by President Mahmoud Abbas is ready to resume contacts with the U.S. government only if it shows commitment to all these conditions, Rudeineh noted.

The government severed political ties with the United States in 2017 after President Donald Trump announced Jerusalem was the capital of Israel. The administration later moved the nation's embassy there in May 2018. Since then Trump and his advisors have been trying to sell an economic plan for the region, what Trump dubbed the 'deal of the century,' as a way make political peace between Palestine and Israel. 

The U.S. plan was officially unveiled at a late-June meeting in Bahrain that the Palestinian Authority boycotted, saying only a political solution will solve the long-standing conflicts between them and Israel, which has annexed and occupied the majority of Palestinian land starting in 1948 with the Nakba. 

The Trump plan abandons decades of attempts by international diplomats to establish a two-state solution, replacing it with a “New Palestine” that wouldn't be allowed an army and illegal settlements in the West Bank would become a part of Israel.

To date, 137 nations in total recognize the sovereignty of Palestine.