Erekat to Asharq Al-Awsat: Trump Is Telling The world 'What Was Taken by Force Can Be Kept By Force'

 Palestinian chief negotiator and Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Saeb Erekat, speaks during a press conference in the West Bank city of Jericho on February 15, 2017. (AFP/Ahmad Gharabli)
Palestinian chief negotiator and Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Saeb Erekat, speaks during a press conference in the West Bank city of Jericho on February 15, 2017. (AFP/Ahmad Gharabli)
TT

Erekat to Asharq Al-Awsat: Trump Is Telling The world 'What Was Taken by Force Can Be Kept By Force'

 Palestinian chief negotiator and Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Saeb Erekat, speaks during a press conference in the West Bank city of Jericho on February 15, 2017. (AFP/Ahmad Gharabli)
Palestinian chief negotiator and Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Saeb Erekat, speaks during a press conference in the West Bank city of Jericho on February 15, 2017. (AFP/Ahmad Gharabli)

Secretary General of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation's (PLO) Executive Committee Saeb Erekat asserted on Saturday that decisions of the current US administration undermine Palestinian-related resolutions adopted since the end of World War II.

“There is no economic development in the absence of security, stability and peace. Those looking for peace and security have no choice but to end the Israeli invasion, to achieve the independence of the Palestinian States with east Jerusalem as its capital, and to solve the issues of refugees and the release of prisoners and detainees,” Erekat told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The PLO spokesperson was speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, which kicked off in Jordan on Saturday in the presence of more than 1,000 participants from more than 50 countries.

Commenting on the policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration, Erekat considered that they undermine what institutions and international resolutions had established since 1945, through decisions taken by the United Nations, Security Council, General Assembly, UN Charter, Human Rights Council and the four Geneva Conventions of 1949.

“Through his policies, Trump says that what was taken by force can be kept by force,” Erekat said.

He explained that such policies lead to one question: “What happens after ISIS?”

Erekat also said that Trump’s decisions concerning the region and its people might lead to violence, chaos and extremism.

On Saturday, the WEF witnessed a dispute between Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman Safadi and Oman’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Yusuf Bin Alawi Bin Abdullah over the issue “of assurances that Israel needs.”

Bin Abdullah said that Israel needs assurances about its future, and that Arabs need to remove all of Israel’s concerns and fears.

However, Safadi responded by saying that Arabs are committed to the peace deal that recognizes Israel. “What more assurances do the Israelis need? The problem is not with lack of assurances, the problem is with the continued Israeli occupation,” he noted.



Lebanon's Caretaker Prime Minister Visits Military Positions in the Country's South

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)
TT

Lebanon's Caretaker Prime Minister Visits Military Positions in the Country's South

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has begun a tour of military positions in the country’s south, almost a month after a ceasefire deal that ended the war between Israel and the Hezbollah group that battered the country.
Najib Mikati on Monday was on his first visit to the southern frontlines, where Lebanese soldiers under the US-brokered deal are expected to gradually deploy, with Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops both expected to withdraw by the end of next month, The Associated Press said.
Mikati’s tour comes after the Lebanese government expressed its frustration over ongoing Israeli strikes and overflights in the country.
“We have many tasks ahead of us, the most important being the enemy's (Israel's) withdrawal from all the lands it encroached on during its recent aggression,” he said after meeting with army chief Joseph Aoun in a Lebanese military barracks in the southeastern town of Marjayoun. “Then the army can carry out its tasks in full.”
The Lebanese military for years has relied on financial aid to stay functional, primarily from the United States and other Western countries. Lebanon’s cash-strapped government is hoping that the war’s end and ceasefire deal will bring about more funding to increase the military’s capacity to deploy in the south, where Hezbollah’s armed units were notably present.
Though they were not active combatants, the Lebanese military said that dozens of its soldiers were killed in Israeli strikes on their premises or patrolling convoys in the south. The Israeli army acknowledged some of these attacks.