Trump deal aims to terminate Palestinian cause: Ashrawi

By Aysar Al-Eis

JERUSALEM (AA) - The Middle East peace plan unveiled by the U.S. is “an attempt to obtain legitimacy for the occupying power,” a leading figure in Palestinian politics said Tuesday.

"We [Palestinians] are holding onto our rights and are aware of the size of the conspiracy, and it is required to unite and trust our ability in confronting the occupier. In the end, we will win," Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian legislator and member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee, said in a recorded video distributed by her office.

Sharing Ashrawi’s sentiments, Hussein Hamayel, the spokesman of the Fatah movement, described U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan as a “meager play and an electoral show."

"Everything that has been said will not be accepted and the deal will not pass. It is rejected by the Palestinian people, Arabs and Muslims," Hamayel told Anadolu Agency.

He stressed that "the deal is rejected by all free people in the world, and those representatives from Arab countries who participated in the deal have done so against the will of their people," referring to the ambassadors of Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates who participated in Trump’s press conference to announce the plan.

On Tuesday, Trump released his oft-delayed plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian dispute during a press conference at the White House, where he was hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Palestinian authorities were not represented.

During the news conference, Trump referred to Jerusalem as "Israel's undivided capital".

The so-called peace plan unilaterally annuls previous UN resolutions on the Palestinian issue and suggests giving Israel almost everything they have been demanding.

#FreePalestine became the top trending hashtag on Twitter shortly after the announcement of the plan.

*Bassel Ibrahim contributed to this report from Ankara