Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan are pressuring the US to hold off on announcing US President Donald Trump's "deal of the century" peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians, according to a report in the London-based pan-Arabic Asharq Al-Awsat that quoted spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh.
Rudeineh also told reports that the rift between the Palestinians in Gaza and in the West Bank was the result of a split in Arab funds, and argued that the split was intentional.
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Touching on the possibility of intra-Palestinian reconciliation, Rudeineh said that there was agreement on holding an election, but that Ramallah was waiting to receive written confirmation from Hamas that the elected government would have freedom of action in Gaza after the election.
According to the report, Rudeineh said that the Arabs favored an Arab-backed peace proposal, which centers around Israel withdrawing from the "occupied territories" and the establishment of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital. In exchange, Arab states would normalize relations with Israel. Rudeineh stressed that Arab states normalizing ties with Israel "for nothing" was unacceptable to the Palestinians.
Rudeineh also laid out the positions that he said Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan held: "Saudi King Salman; Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi; and the Jordanian royal family have made it clear that they support the two-state solution, the establishment of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital, and a just peace that does not perpetuate the occupation."
The minister went on to say that relations between the US and the PA had suffered a serious blow when the US administration took the "core issues" of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees off the table. He also said that the Arab and Muslim world was united on the issue of Jerusalem, and should raise a cry in Arab and international media and in different languages to expose Israeli "provocations."
Rudeineh claimed that no plan or economic workshop or any similar initiatives had any chance of succeeding if they did not discuss the issues of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees. He argued that the only PA President Mahmoud Abbas could hold negotiations.
