WASHINGTON, D.C. (Press Release) — The following statement was issued on Monday by the U.S. State Department:
“The Administration has determined after careful review that the office of the General Delegation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Washington should close. We have permitted the PLO office to conduct operations that support the objective of achieving a lasting, comprehensive peace between Israelis and the Palestinians since the expiration of a previous waiver in November 2017. However, the PLO has not taken steps to advance the start of direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel. To the contrary, PLO leadership has condemned a U.S. peace plan they have not yet seen and refused to engage with the U.S. government with respect to peace efforts and otherwise. As such, and reflecting Congressional concerns, the Administration has decided that the PLO office in Washington will close at this point. This decision is also consistent with Administration and Congressional concerns with Palestinian attempts to prompt an investigation of Israel by the International Criminal Court.
“The United States continues to believe that direct negotiations between the two parties are the only way forward. This action should not be exploited by those who seek to act as spoilers to distract from the imperative of reaching a peace agreement. We are not retreating from our efforts to achieve a lasting and comprehensive peace.”
In response to the statement, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) said the Trump administration’s action “complies with legislation adopted by bipartisan congressional majorities. The PLO itself triggered the law’s required closing of the office by pursuing efforts at the International Criminal Court to isolate and delegitimize Israel.
“For years, the PLO has placed obstacles in the path of peace and has now refused to enter negotiations with the Israelis or meet with American officials. We urge the Palestinian leadership to return to the negotiating table with the Israelis and cease its efforts to delegitimize Israel in international forums.”
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Preceding from the U.S. State Department and AIPAC
The following statement was issued by Americans for Peace Now (APN):
The Trump administration’s latest measures against the Palestinians and their leadership are an attack on prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace. They are not only anti-Palestinian, but also anti-Israel and anti-peace. They do not serve America’s national security interests – or Israel’s.
The Trump administration’s attack on Israel’s Palestinian partner for peace negotiations, the Palestine Liberation Organization, is an attack on the framework for peace that the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships have created in the past quarter century. This framework was sustained with the blessing of the international community and the active support of past US administrations, Democratic and Republican, even under right-wing Israeli governments. This framework envisioned a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, living side-by-side with Israel in peace and security.
The Trump administration has never endorsed this vision, and is now actively working to bring about its demise.
Alarmed by this trajectory, Americans for Peace Now (APN) calls on the few remaining responsible members of the Trump administration’s foreign policy team and on Congress to act to reverse this disastrous trend and preserve any remaining chance for viable peace between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors.
The latest swing of the Trump administration’s wrecking ball at Palestinians and at prospects for peace was its decision earlier this week to shutter the PLO mission in Washington, DC, an institution that has practically been serving as a Palestinian embassy in the US capital for the past quarter-century. This measure followed decisions to defund humanitarian and development projects in the West Bank and Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem, and to end America’s funding of UNRWA, the United Nations agency that provides health, education, and other vital services to Palestinian refugees.
The Trump administration defends its latest move on the grounds that it will put pressure on the Palestinian leadership to engage with its unannounced “ultimate deal” for Israeli-Palestinian peace. By all indications, the Trump plan does not endorse a two-state solution and predetermines key negotiating issues such as the future of Jerusalem and the future of Palestinian refugees by (in the words of Trump and his team) taking them “off the table.”
Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly committed to a negotiated two-state peace deal that would fulfill Israeli national security demands. Only last week, in a meeting with representatives of the Israeli peace movement Peace Now (Shalom Achshav), APN’s sister-organization, Abbas committed to a demilitarized Palestinian state, the borders of which would be negotiated with Israel, and which would absorb Palestinian refugees so as not to flood Israel with Palestinians who would threaten Israel’s demographic Jewish majority.
Donald Trump and his chief advisors on Israeli-Palestinian relations – his former real estate lawyer, his former bankruptcy lawyer, and his son-in-law – have shown no genuine interest in advancing peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Had that been their sincere objective, they would have taken measures to encourage Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO to engage. Instead, they have taken step after step to humiliate, weaken, and punish Abbas and the PLO. Coercion will not convince Palestinians to engage when there is nothing left on the table to negotiate. The Trump administration’s true objective appears to be portraying the Palestinians as rejectionists for their refusal to submit to American bullying. This will clear the way for the Trump administration to formally abandon America’s traditional role as an honest broker of Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
Israel’s future as a liberal democracy and a Jewish state depends on a viable political resolution of its conflict with the Palestinians. Americans who care about Israel must join us in pushing the administration and Congress to reverse Trump’s disastrous policies on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Republican Jewish Coalition announces its support for President Trump’s decision to close the office of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Washington, D.C. Republican Jewish Coalition Chairman Senator Norm Coleman said:
“The Trump Administration once again demonstrated its commitment to a negotiated peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. The President has made it clear that he is willing to exert maximum pressure on both sides in order to bring them to the table, because a deal negotiated by the two sides is the only chance for peace. The decision to close the PLO office in Washington was designed specifically to bring the Palestinians to the negotiation table. It was done with the singular intention to bring peace to the region. While the Israelis have demonstrated time and again that they are willing to negotiate a peace deal and stick with it, we need to find a way to get the Palestinians to make the same kind of commitment. Where others have tried to coddle the Palestinians, to no avail, President Trump is bringing new ideas and tactics to the process. We congratulate the President on this move and his commitment to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.”