 "US sanctions PLO & Palestinian Authority over terror accusation")
The US Department of State on Thursday announced imposing visa sanctions on the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The PA is the internationally-recognised de-facto Palestinian government that runs parts of West Bank under the Oslo Accords from its seat at Ramallah. The PLO is the internationally-recognised representative body of the Palestinian movement and has a ’non-member observer state’ at the United Nations (UN).
In a statement, the State Department said the PLO and PA were in violation of their obligations and were “continuing to support terrorism including incitement and glorification of violence (especially in textbooks) and providing payments and benefits in support of terrorism to Palestinian terrorists and their families”.
The sanctions on the PLO and PA deal another set of blows to the two-state solution, the internationally-accepted way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by establishing two states for Jews (Israel) and Arabs (Palestine) side by side to fulfil the nationhood aspiration of both the peoples. The development has come at a time when some of the closest US allies, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, are moving towards recognising Palestinian statehood .
With sanctions on PA, Trump empowers Hamas
Under the Oslo Accords signed between Israel and the PLO in the 1990s, the PA was established as the provisional limited self-government of Palestinians to run the West Bank and Gaza.
Under the agreement, the PA was supposed to eventually evolve into the Palestinian national government upon the establishment of the State of Palestine as per the two-state solution. However, negotiations envisioned under the Oslo Accords died in the 2000s and there has not any progress in a long time.
For years, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been a critic of the PA and the Palestinian party that dominates it, the Fatah, and has equated them with Hamas, the terrorist group that wrested the control of Gaza from the PA in 2007. He has systematically sought to weaken the PA over the years, such as withholding PA’s tax revenue, expanding settlements in West Bank, and encroaching into PA-governed territories in the West Bank.
Such actions have essentially strengthened Hamas as the terrorist group has used the weakness of the PA to assert itself as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and cause.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsIn his second term, Trump has joined Netanyahu to essentially kill the two-state solution and the establishment of any Palestinian state in the near future. While Trump has called for the American annexation of Gaza and the expulsion of all Palestinians from there, Netanyahu has held discussions for the Israeli annexation of Gaza and the internment of all Palestinians in a camp that critics have condemned as a concentration camp.
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