Saeb Erekat, Secretary-General of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said last night that the Palestinian leadership will hold a meeting headed by President Mahmoud Abbas next Thursday, to create a full strategy to respond to the Israeli plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.
Speaking to the official Voice of Palestine radio, he held the American administration fully responsible for any steps taken by Israel in this regard. He said the statement made by the US ambassador to Israel David Friedman, in which he said that the establishment of a Palestinian state will only take place “when the Palestinians become Canadians,” is an unprecedented insolence from a man promoting violence, murder and settlements.
He added that the US administration, which includes Friedman and others like him, promotes settlements and aims at imposing facts on the ground. Erekat stressed that the US has taken 47 decisions against the Palestinians in the past two years, including relocating the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, closing the office of the PLO in Washington, halting US financial aid to the UNRWA, and writing off the Palestine refugees issue.
Regarding the statements made by Fatou Bensouda, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), in which she confirmed the impartiality of the investigation on Palestine, Erekat said that this would lead to the opening of judicial investigations of Israeli officials who have committed war crimes against Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem.
Erekat pointed out that the Israeli incitement campaign against the ICC aims at silencing the voice of the world so that Israel can pass its crimes without any accountability or criticism.
