The Palestinian Authority and Hamas on Thursday both dismissed U.S. President Donald Trump's recent declaration that Israel would be made to "pay a higher price" in peace talks as a result of official U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital last year, calling Trump's pledge "meaningless."
Trump's assertions that his regional peace plan had "removed the issue of Jerusalem from the negotiating table," and that the Palestinians "will get something very good, because it's their turn next," were also dismissed.
Ahmed Tamimi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Executive Committee, denounced the statement as "a continuation of U.S.'s biased policy in favor of Israel. The U.S. administration is peddling an illusion, as if the 'deal of the century' can be implemented without Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state in any future agreement.
"We know nothing about the negotiations Trump is talking about. Jerusalem lies in the Palestinian people's soul and the Arab and Islamic nation's heart and it can never be removed from our hearts," he said.
A statement by Hamas, the terrorist group ruling the Gaza Strip, said, "The conspiracy that is President Trump's 'deal of the century' is slowly dying."
However, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said Wednesday that there was no "quid pro quo" involved in the U.S. decision to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Bolton, who was on a three-day visit to Israel, said the president's comments did not represent a change in the administration's policy on peace negotiations or on Israel's need to make concessions.
"I don't think there's any change in policy. I think the president looked at the recognition of Jerusalem as being Israel's capital and the inevitable consequence of that is that the U.S. Embassy ought to be in the capital city of the country [to] which it's accredited as the right and natural thing to do. It's not an issue of quid pro quo," he said.
'No chance of peace without Jerusalem'
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat stressed Wednesday that unless the U.S. reneges on its statement that the issue of Jerusalem is "off the table" there is "no chance for peace between Israel and the Palestinians."
The issue of the holy city's status has been a major bone of contention in peace talks, frozen since 2014. Israel maintains that Jerusalem, united during the 1967 Six-Day War, is its capital, while the Palestinians demand east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
Erekat noted that Trump had unnecessarily complicated an already complex situation with his decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, saying that any statements about excluding the city from the peace talks were "unrealistic."
"When someone tells me that Jerusalem is off the table in the negotiations, they may as well tell me to remove my lungs from my body and that I will still continue to live a good life," he said.
Majdi al-Khaldi, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's senior diplomatic adviser was equally critical of Trump's statement, saying the United States "made a major mistake" when it recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved its embassy there, and that the only "compensation" the U.S. could offer for that would be "to recognize the State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital."
Washington would have to recognize the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as "the sole solution" to the decadeslong regional conflict, he said.
Khaldi also blasted Trump's assertion that his Jerusalem move would help push the stalled peace talks forward, saying, "The obstacle in the path of the peace process is not Jerusalem – it is the occupation."
Abbas has been shunning the U.S.'s peace efforts since Trump's Dec. 6 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and the subsequent embassy move, and has accused the Trump administration of being "grossly biased" in Israel's favor.
The Palestinian leader has also demanded that the U.S. no longer serve as the sole mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, calling for the establishment of a multilaterally mediated mechanism to broker it, instead.
"We will not listen to anything that comes [from the Trump administration], regardless of what it is, unless if the two-state solution [is endorsed] and East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine is recognized," Abbas said at a meeting of the Fatah Central Committee in April. "If that happens, we can talk about the rest of the issues remaining on the table."
Bolton said Wednesday that Trump was "disappointed" with the Palestinian response to his efforts to broker regional peace.
"As a deal maker, he [Trump] would expect that the Palestinians would say, 'Okay, great, we didn't get that one, now we want something else.' We'll see how it goes," he said.
While critical of PA officials' refusal to meet with Washington's emissaries, Bolton nonetheless said that "the president did the right thing in moving the embassy to Israel's capital, and that in and of itself brings reality to the negotiations.
"It was a very positive step forward not just for Israel, but for the Palestinians as well," he insisted.
