WASHINGTON — The Palestinian representative says peace talks with Israel can only start as long as other countries – not just the U.S. and Israel – are at the table.
“There is no way but an international table to implement international resolutions,” Palestine Liberation Organization Ambassador Husam Zomlot said Thursday, speaking at the Palestine Center in Washington, D.C.
His comments come as Palestinian and U.S. officials are at an impasse over President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, followed by his insistence that “taking Jerusalem off the table” is helpful to the peace process.
Zomlot said that by taking Jerusalem off the negotiating table, “No Palestinian will sit on that table.”
Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas — whom Zomlot serves as strategic advisor — has declared that the PLO would no longer participate in peace negotiations that were solely mediated by the United States.
But Zomlot said Palestinians would consider a multilateral forum that includes Europe and other members of the international community.
Zomlot’s call for international participation comes as the Israeli Parliament voted to make it much harder for it to cede control over portions of Jerusalem as part of any peace deal with the Palestinians. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party recently urged the annexation of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which Palestinians denounce as a land grab.
“This is not a government rejecting the two-state solution by words,” Zomlot said. “This is a government rejecting the two-state solution by deeds, every day murdering the possibility, burying it deep in the ground.”
The PLO ambassador also took issue with remarks made by Trump last year during a joint appearance with Netanyahu that seemed to suggest he was flexible on the ultimate shape of an agreement.
“I am looking at two-state [solutions] and one-state,” the president said last February. “I like the one that both parties like.”
The Palestinian ambassador asked for Trump to explain what a “one-state solution” for Palestinians and Israelis would look like.
“We want to listen. What does President Trump mean when he says one state?” asked Thursday, referring to Trump’s comments last year that suggested he might abandon the long-held U.S. position that a two-state solution.
“If he means ‘one man, one vote’ in the historic land of Palestine, we will listen. If he means a democratic system… that guarantees the rights of every citizen, we will listen,” he said.
Zomlot seemed to be hinting in part at Israel’s conundrum that the relatively higher Palestinian birthrate would mean Israeli Jews would soon be outnumbered in future Israel that contained both sides.
