The Secretary-General of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Saeb Erekat, condemned a move by US congressmen to enact a new law that recognizes only 40,000 Palestinian refugees, instead of 5.2 million.
The official Palestinian News Agency (WAFA) quoted Erekat as saying that this endeavor “is unacceptable, illegal and cannot affect the status quo.”
He added that the move, initiated by US Congressman Doug Lamborn, “is an integral part of the deal of the century, which aims to discard the right of the refugees, and is consistent with the racist (Israeli) Nation-State Law, which is the cornerstone of that dubious deal.”
Erekat underlined that the rights of refugees were protected by UN Resolution 194, which cannot be bypassed. He said neither the US Senate nor Congress had the right to override international law and impose their laws on other countries.
He noted that the administration of US President Donald Trump “has cut off aid to UNRWA and now the Congress is trying to push for a new law that would reduce the number of Palestinian refugees,” describing these acts as part of the US war against the Palestinian people by abolishing their right of return.
The PLO official criticized what he described as the US administration’s blind and unprecedented support for the ongoing violations by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people from killings, arrests, demolition of homes, seizure of land and expanding settlements, adding that the whole world had rejected these actions, except the US.
