PLO chief says UAE-Israel agreement will kill 'two-state solution'

Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Saeb Erekat says the normalization deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will kill the so-called two-state solution, strengthen “extremists” and undermine the “possibility of peace.”

“I really believe that this step is a killer to the two-state solution,” the chief Palestinian negotiator said on Sunday, during a video call with foreign journalists.

Erekat stressed that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have less incentive to compromise on a viable Palestinian state “if he believes that Arab countries will line up to make peace with him.”

In a joint statement issued by the White House on Thursday, Israel and the UAE announced that they had “agreed to the full normalization of relations.”

The highly controversial deal, which has since been widely condemned across the occupied Palestinian territories and the Muslim world, has been brokered by US President Donald Trump, who has attempted to paint it as a big breakthrough.

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Israel and the United Arab Emirates agree to normalize diplomatic ties in a deal apparently brokered by US President Donald Trump that includes Tel Aviv regime’s agreement to suspend annexation of the occupied West Bank.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Erekat said that “people like Netanyahu and extremists in Israel believe that the two-state solution is off the table.”

The senior Palestinian official denounced the Israel-UAE deal as a “desperate attempt” by Trump to notch a foreign policy success.

Erekat also lambasted the senior White House advisor and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, an architect of the much-condemned agreement, as displaying “a combination of arrogance and ignorance.”

Delegations from Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi will meet in the coming weeks to sign bilateral agreements regarding investment, tourism, direct flights, security and the establishment of reciprocal embassies, according to the joint statement.

The UAE-Israel deal marks the third such normalization agreement the occupying regime has struck with an Arab country after Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994). Abu Dhabi was already believed to have clandestine relations with Tel Aviv.

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Anger is boiling in the Middle East and elsewhere over a recent agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to normalize diplomatic relations.

Erekat further said on Sunday that Palestinians have called on the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation to hold for emergency meetings to reject the deal.

However, no replies have yet received from either body, he added.

The top Palestinian negotiator also said that he had already asked Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to pressure the UAE to cancel the deal.

Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds during the Six-Day War in 1967. It later annexed East Jerusalem al-Quds in a move not recognized by the international community.

Palestinians want the resolution of the conflict with Tel Aviv based on the so-called two-state solution along the pre-1967 boundaries.

However, the Israeli officials insist on maintaining the occupation of Palestinian territories.

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