he Palestinian leadership, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, has looked at all the documents that have been presented and going to be presented. We have realized that this economic workshop in Bahrain is going to be really of none sense, it’s just simply a theoretical piece of work calling for $60 billion. We don’t know where this money is going to come from, but we know that the economic problem in Palestine has to do with all the Israeli measures. I have not seen in the document any reference to occupation. I have not seen in the document any reference to settlements. We have not seen in the document any reference to ending occupation.
This workshop is simply a political laundry for settlements and a legitimization of occupation. The Palestinian leadership is not part of it. We are not going to attend, and we think that the outcome is going to be fruitless, and it is simply nonsense.
The Palestinian Israeli solution has only to do with ending the Israeli occupation to Palestinian territory and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, and agreed upon settlement for the issue of the refugees.
It is really ironic that the American administration who is imposing serious financial war on the Palestinian Authority is the one that is calling for the Bahrain workshop to improve the living conditions of the Palestinian people.
We have seen this before, Secretary of State George Shultz, who was here in 1983, spoke about improving the living conditions; it proved to be impossible. And then John Kerry stood at the Dead Sea calling for $4 b to be invested in the Palestinian territory. We have seen zero out of that. And therefore I think the outcome of this workshop is not going to be fruitful, is going to be really zero outcomes, and if the Arabs are the ones who are going to pay the money, why is it that the Palestinians should make any compromise for Arab money?
I think this is a situation again if the US administration is serious about anything, it should really call things with their name; occupation is occupation, settlements are settlements. Any fruitful, serious, comprehensive peace in the region has to do with the Arab peace initiative that has called for ending the Israeli occupation of the Arab territories in return of relationship with Israel.
Today is a day of anger. Palestinians everywhere are united behind the leadership of president Abbas. In Gaza, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Jordan, in Palestine, in everywhere, Palestinians are standing to show anger that we deserve a moment of peace, that our kids deserve a moment of happiness, and this peace and happiness is simply a product of ending occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state.
