Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Friday called on the US administration to speed up the reopening of the US Consulate General in Jerusalem that had previously handled direct contacts with the Palestinians.
Shtayyeh’s call came during a meeting in Ramallah with a US delegation that included Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee panel dealing with the Middle East, Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland), and Jon Ossoff (D-Georgia).
In 2019, the consulate general was formally integrated into the US Embassy, which was relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Palestinian officials criticized that decision, which was made by the administration of former US president Donald Trump. The consulate general had served as a de facto embassy for the Palestinians, and its reopening has enormous significance for the Palestinians.
Murphy tweeted a message on Friday calling for the reopening of the consulate general, which had also serviced Americans since its opening in 1844.
“This consulate was open for over 100 years before being cruelly shuttered by president Trump,” Murphy tweeted.
He said that the senators had spoken of the issue when they met with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett Friday toward the end of their three-day trip.
“In our meetings today in Israel with Prime Minister Bennett and other officials, we stressed the importance we place on reopening our consulate in Jerusalem to better serve Palestinians,” Murphy wrote.
Last May, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that Washington would reopen the consulate general. He made the announcement after meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.
However, Blinken did not give a precise date for the reopening, but said that it would be “an important way for our country to engage with and provide support to the Palestinian people.”
Last week, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid warned that US plans to reopen the consulate general would jeopardize Israel’s government.
“We have an interesting, yet delicate structure of our government, and we think this might destabilize this government – and I don’t think the American administration wants this to happen,” Lapid said.
Bennett expressed his opposition to the reopening of the US Consulate General when he met in Washington last month with US President Joe Biden.
During the meeting with the senators on Friday, Shtayyeh called on the US administration “to expedite the implementation of its promises, especially the reopening of the US Consulate in east Jerusalem, in addition to removing the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority from the lists of terrorism in the US,” the PA’s official news agency Wafa reported.
In 1987, Congress passed the Anti-Terrorism Act, which, among others, declared the PLO to be a terrorist organization and prohibited the opening of PLO facilities on US soil. Despite the ban, Congress allowed for the president to issue a waiver of his own accord, paving the way for the PLO to open a representative office in Washington in 1994.
In 2018, the Trump administration ordered the closure of the PLO office due to the Palestinians’ refusal to engage with the White House on its Middle East “Peace to Prosperity” plan. The State Department said then that the decision was made because the PLO “has not taken steps to advance the start of direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel.”
The PA is not included in the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
Shtayyeh was apparently referring to the 2018 Taylor Force Act, in which Congress legislated a discontinuation of American aid to the PA until it ceases paying stipends to Palestinians who commit acts of terrorism and to the families of deceased terrorists.
US anti-terrorism legislation that came into force a year later allows Americans to sue in US courts those receiving US foreign aid, including the PA, over alleged complicity in “acts of war.”
The PA prime minister “stressed the importance of working to open a serious and new political path to end the occupation through the Quartet – the US, UN, Russia and the EU – on the basis of international law and legitimacy and United Nations resolutions,” according to Wafa.
The PA has stated that it is ready to resume peace talks with Israel only under the leadership of all the Quartet members, and not the US alone.
Shtayyeh repeated his appeal to the US administration to pressure Israel “and oblige it to respect the signed agreements, including halting construction in the settlements, stopping violations of Palestinian human rights – whether by killing, arresting, demolishing property [or] confiscating land – and halting its measures in Jerusalem,” the agency said.
He discussed with the delegation the importance of directly strengthening bilateral relations between the US and the Palestinians, and praised the Biden administration’s decision to renew financial aid to the United Nations Work and Relief Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and for development and infrastructure projects. He also praised the US for helping the Palestinians combat COVID-19.
Shtayyeh told the senators that the two-state solution “faces a real danger as a result of Israel’s continuation of its settlement policy and land-grabbing.”
He warned that “the erosion of the two-state solution and the continuation of the status quo will have demographic and security consequences.”
He called on the US to exert serious pressure on Israel to allow Palestinian elections to be held in Jerusalem.
In April, Abbas called off the elections for the PA Parliament and presidency on the pretext that Israel had not responded to his request to allow the vote to take place in Jerusalem.
He condemned Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s statements on the eve of his recent visit to Washington, saying they “demonstrate clear intransigence and persistence in the settlement policy and the creation of permanent facts on the ground.”
In an interview with The New York Times on the eve of his visit to Washington, Bennett ruled out any progress in the peace process with the Palestinians and said that Israel will continue the standard policy of catering for “natural growth” in the settlements.
The four senators expressed their support for a two-state resolution to the conflict, while in Israel to meet with members of the new government.
“We expressed our hopes for the success of the new government and our strong support for a two-state future,” Murphy tweeted after his delegation met with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Thursday. The four men also met with President Isaac Herzog.
The delegation also visited the Knesset, where they met with Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman MK Ram Ben-Barak (Yesh Atid) and Ra’am Party leader MK Mansour Abbas.
After meeting with the delegation on Friday, Herzog tweeted, “Bipartisanship is a sacred pillar of the US-Israel alliance. Delighted to welcome a delegation of US Democratic Senators to Jerusalem. Held an open discussion with Senators @ChrisMurphyCT, @SenBlumenthal, @ChrisVanHollen & @Ossoff about our shared interests and values.”
The four men arrived in Israel after a trip to Beirut, where they warned that Lebanon was in a free fall as a result of its destabilizing financial meltdown.
Their comment reflected growing concern about the situation in Lebanon, where a financial collapse that began in 2019 hit a crunch point last month with a crippling fuel shortage that sparked security incidents and warnings of worse to come. They also warned that Iranian fuel being shipped to Lebanon by Hezbollah would come with strings attached, dismissing it as an attempted “photo-op by the Iranians.”
The financial crisis marks the biggest threat to Lebanon’s stability since the 1975-90 civil war.
More than half of Lebanon’s six million people have fallen into poverty. The World Bank says it is one of the sharpest depressions of modern times with its currency plunging more than 90% and the financial system paralyzed.
“Lebanon is in free fall... We’ve seen this movie before and it’s a horror story... but the good news is it can, should, and hopefully will be avoided,” Blumenthal told reporters on Wednesday at the end of a two-day visit.
Reuters contributed to this report