The United States will not present its long-awaited plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace any time soon and is instead trying to unilaterally change the terms of reference for any future proposal, a senior Palestinian official said on Saturday.
Echoing deep skepticism among the Palestinians, Arab countries and analysts, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said that the Trump administration was siding with Israel on the core issues of the decades-old conflict, burying all chances for Middle East peace.
"I don't think they will ever introduce a plan," Erekat said. "The whole world is rejecting their ideas. They are already implementing their plan by changing the terms of reference," he said.
Doubts have mounted over whether the U.S. administration can secure what he has called the "ultimate deal" since December, when U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and then moved the U.S. Embassy there.
Jerusalem is one of the major sticking points in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians were outraged when Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, as they envision parts of the city as the future capital of an independent Palestinian state. The move prompted the Palestinian leadership to boycott Washington's peace efforts, led by Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.
The U.S. has also cut off aid to the Palestinians and to UNRWA, the U.N. agency that supports Palestinian refugees, and has ordered the PLO's office in Washington shuttered, further angering Palestinian leaders.
Erekat said the U.S. appears to have accepted Israel's positions on other central issues of the conflict, including the fate of Palestinian refugees and Israeli settlements on land Palestinians envisage as part of their future independent state.
"They are telling us 'peace based on the truth,'" Erekat said.
"The Kushner truth and the Netanyahu truth is that Jerusalem is Israel's capital, no right of return for [Palestinian] refugees, settlements are legal, no Palestinian state on 1967 [borders] and Gaza must be separated from the West Bank, and this is absolutely unacceptable," Erekat said.
"The only thing this administration has done since it came to office is just to take Israelis and Palestinians off the path to peace, off the path of the two-state solution," Erekat said.
But Trump's Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt said Washington was prepared for Israeli criticism of the plan and that both sides can expect parts they will like and dislike. He provided no further details.
Greenblatt, a chief architect of the initiative, said U.S. negotiators had entered the "pre-launch phase" of the plan, despite the boycott by Palestinian leaders, but declined to specify a time frame.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' spokesman meanwhile accused the U.S. administration of pursuing "irresponsible" policies after Kushner, Trump's Middle East adviser, defended punitive measures against the Palestinians.
Kushner told The New York Times this week that he believed aid cuts and the closure of the PLO mission in Washington stripped away "false realities" in the Middle East and did not harm chances of advancing an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.
Kushner did not explain how he could promote a peace deal without Palestinian participation.
A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said Friday that Kushner's statement indicates he is "unaware of the reality of the conflict," including the history of Jerusalem.
On Friday, meanwhile, Germany's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said the U.S. decision to close the Palestinians' de facto embassy in Washington could complicate "the resumption of talks for a two-state solution."
