The Palestinian Authority is suspicious of US President Joe Biden’s continued calls for the creation of an independent Palestinian state and also of the possibility of that happening while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still in office.
Speaking exclusively with The Media Line, Fatah Central Committee Deputy Chairman Mahmoud Al-Aloul scoffed at the concept of the United States as an “honest broker” and said that Netanyahu’s main agenda is to keep the war going so that he does not have to face trial in Israel.
The Fatah party rules the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and Al-Aloul has often been mentioned as a potential successor to PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
On Friday, President Biden spoke with Netanyahu for the first time in nearly a month about their differences over a future Palestinian state, as well as about Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza, where the Palestinian death toll has surpassed 25,000, according to local health authorities.
Palestinians: 'Not enough pressure on Israel'
Palestinians say the Biden Administration is not applying enough pressure on Israel to end the conflict, and that his talk of a two-state solution rings hollow.
“If Biden wanted, if the United States wanted something else, it would have forced him to speak in a completely different way. Netanyahu’s agenda is completely different. His main agenda is more war, destruction, and killing so that there is additional time to continue ruling so that he does not go to prison,” Al-Aloul said.
US: A 'supporter of Israeli occupation'
Speaking of the US, he said: “Honest broker? Who said that? Certainly it’s not an honest broker. It is not only a supporter and supporter of the Israeli occupation. At all stages, it is an accomplice of the occupation in all its crimes against the Palestinian people.”
Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected calls for Palestinian sovereignty, insisting that Israel’s security needs are incompatible with Palestinian statehood.
“I greatly appreciate US support for Israel and I also expressed this to President Biden,” Netanyahu said after their phone call. “However, I will strongly insist on our vital interests. I emphasized to Biden our determination to achieve all of the goals of the war, and to ensure that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to Israel. Therefore, I insist that after we achieve total victory, after we eliminate Hamas, there will be no entity in Gaza that finances terrorism, educates for terrorism, or sends terrorists.”
He also rejected Hamas’ terms for ending the conflict, which the group said means the remaining Israeli hostages being held in Gaza will not be released.
“I am working on this around the clock,” Netanyahu said. “But let it be clear: I utterly reject the Hamas monsters’ capitulation terms. Hamas is demanding, in exchange for the release of our hostages, the end of the war, the withdrawal of our forces from Gaza, the release of the murders and rapists of the Nukhba, and leaving Hamas in place.”
The Biden Administration has said it wants to see the PA rule the Gaza Strip after the war ends, but President Biden has demanded that the PA administration “rejuvenate.”
“By making this request, they are evading the basic entitlements. The basic entitlement now is to stop the fire. The basic entitlement now is to stop the war of extermination that is taking place in the Gaza Strip. They were not able to create that with the Israelis so that they would retaliate against us. To tell us about the next day. We told them we are looking. About the last day, not the next,” Al-Aloul said.
“We do not have a problem with renewal and that there is a need for such a thing,” he said, but added that the Americans are demanding this to escape their responsibility to pressure Israel to stop the aggression in Gaza.
“I think it is time for the United States to take a more solid stance in confronting the occupation,” Al-Aloul said.
He also said the PA did not need to “return” to Gaza because it had never really left it.
“We will not return to ruling the Gaza Strip for a basic reason: First, we were not outside the Gaza Strip, in order to return to it. We are basically there. The Palestinian National Authority was the one that ran life in the Gaza Strip: education, the Health Ministry, hospitals and energy. We want a new political climate, a new political horizon to manage the Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem,” Al-Aloul said.