Arab League to hold urgent meeting on Mideast plan

By Halime Afra Aksoy

ISTANBUL (AA) - The Arab League will convene an urgent ministerial-level meeting Saturday to discuss the so-called Middle East peace plan released by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Palestinian news agency WAFA said Wednesday that Diab al-Louh, Palestine’s ambassador to Egypt, who is also the permanent representative of Palestine at the Arab League, officially asked the league to hold an extraordinary session at the level of ministers with the participation of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Louh said Arab countries should stand united in the face of all plans that ignore the Palestinian issue and eliminate a two-state solution.

He said these plans attempt to eliminate the opportunity to establish an independent Palestinian state.

Trump unveiled the controversial plan on Tuesday at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side. The so-called peace plan offered everything the far-right Israelis have been demanding, giving Palestinians nothing but vague economic promises and the tiniest glimmer of hope for statehood.

Trump tied Palestinian statehood to "firm rejection of terrorism" while Netanyahu listed a number of impossible criteria such as disarming Hamas, demilitarizing Gaza, recognizing the Jewish state and Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and other strategic areas in order for negotiations on statehood to even start with Palestinians.

Roughly 650,000 Israeli Jews currently live on more than 100 settlements built since 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Palestinians insist on regaining the entire West Bank along with the Gaza Strip for the establishment of a future Palestinian state.

International law views both the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied territories and considers all Jewish settlement-building activity there illegal.

*Writing by Dilara Hamit