Palestinian Foreign Affairs Minister, Riyad Al-Maliki, yesterday called on Arab countries to reject the UAE-Israel normalisation treaty. “We reject Emirati normalisation and we hope you will have the same stand,” Al-Maliki said during the Arab League meeting for Foreign Affairs Ministers. “As if what the occupation and the American administration are doing is not enough for us,” added Al-Maliki.
On 13 August, US President Donald Trump announced a peace deal between the UAE and Israel brokered by Washington.
Al-Maliki described the treaty as an earthquake that hit the Arab stance. He added that “the American-Israeli-Emirati tripartite declaration was that earthquake, and instead of being supported by the Arabs in the face of the retreat reflected in the declaration, we found ourselves in a situation of defending our cause alone, and the tables turned so that we have become the troublemakers who are to blame.”
Al-Maliki clarified that Palestine requested an emergency meeting to be held to discuss the normalisation agreement, however, a fellow Arab state refused. “Upon accepting a regular session, the same state surprised us when it objected, adding a clause that stipulated discussing recent affairs, while another state threatened to present a draft for a substitute decision.”
Though the Palestinian official did not mention the state in question, there has been media speculation that Bahrain had objected to an emergency meeting being held following the announcement of the deal.
Al-Maliki thanked the Arab countries that “refused to be blackmailed by the American Foreign Affairs secretary, so that they would rush toward normalisation.”
He went on to criticise Arab countries for not abiding by their commitments towards Palestine, “be it about providing a secure financial network, or about the political stances to the American administration, starting with moving the embassy and recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and ending with the Trump ‘peace treaty’.”
Al-Maliki renewed requests to commit to the 2002 Arab initiative linking normalisation to withdrawal from lands occupied in 1967.
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