Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh has said that Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu “is not a partner in peace.”
In a speech at the annual conference of Socialist International (SI) hosted this year by Palestine in Ramallah, Shtayyeh slammed Netanyahu and the administration of US President Donald Trump, accusing them of destroying the two-state solution.
“Netanyahu and the right-wing governments he has led have never been a political partner; Israel steals our land and money and kills our sons, he said, adding “We want an Israeli partner in peace based on a two-state solution.”
Israel has been left with two options under Netanyahu’s rule. “Either the two-state solution or the demographic death, either the two-state solution or no Jewish democratic state, either the two-state solution or no peace,” Palestinian News and Info Agency (WAFA) quoted Shtayyeh as saying.
He called on the SI to stop the Israeli theft of Palestinian territories, force Israel to pay for its human rights violations, pressure the governments of countries to ask settlers who carry their nationalities to leave the Palestinian territories, and to support President Mahmoud Abbas' initiative for the convening of an international peace conference in the Middle East based on international legitimacy.
Representatives of 22 political parties from 14 countries are taking part in the SI conference. But the representative of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, Ahmed Saadi, was banned by the Israeli authorities from entering Ramallah over his Palestinian origins.
