Erekat: Manama workshop a deviation from the solution to ending occupation 

Just yesterday, US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, and President Trump’s Assistant for National Security Affairs, John Bolton, visited the occupied Jordan Valley with Benjamin Netanyahu to again justify Israel’s occupation and to promote its plan for the further annexation of lands belonging to the State of Palestine.

“Annexation is a war crime under international law and is a threat to the security, contiguity, and the viability of a sovereign State of Palestine, on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital,” statement said.

Statement added that the Manana Economic Workshop, which coincides with the Arab Finance Ministers’ emergency meeting in Cairo and the Pledging Conference for UNRWA in New York, and the released US Economic Plan are only a deviation from the fundamental political solution that necessitates ending Israel’s 52 years- long military occupation and a just solution to Palestinian refugees in accordance to UNGA resolution 194.

“Such inciting campaigns aim at making the people and leadership of Palestine accept the dictations, threats, and tyranny of both the US and Israel – and they are doomed to fail. The Palestinian people have the right to live in freedom, dignity, peace, and security- and we are committed to defending our inalienable rights, mainly our right to self-determination, and Palestine’s right to exist,” it concluded.