Palestinian Authority blasts US peace plan as Balfour Declaration II

“This project does not talk about the economy of the Palestinian state and its components, but tries to whitewash the occupation and settlement,” says the PA.

By World Israel News Staff

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is dismissing the newly announced U.S. $50 billion economic plan for the Palestinians and the Middle East as nothing more than a reaffirmation of Washington’s support of Israel, says the official PA news agency WAFA.

“This project does not talk about the economy of the Palestinian state and its components, but tries to whitewash the [Israeli] occupation and settlement,” the PA Foreign Ministry said in a statement, as reported by WAFA.

“Day after day,” the ministry added, “the reality of the American intentions and attitudes against the Palestinian people and their rights unfolds in what can be called the obnoxious Trump Declaration or the Balfour Declaration II, which denies the existence of the Palestinian people,” the PA news agency reported.

The 1917 Balfour Declaration, written by British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour, stated that “His Majesty’s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object.”

“The Trump team is trying to restrict the Palestinian economy with the chains of occupation while depriving it of any opportunity to prosper and develop as an independent state economy,” said the PA statement, according to WAFA. “This [prosperity] cannot happen under occupation, settlements, the theft of the Palestinian land and the takeover of the Palestinian natural resources,” it continued.

The PA reaction followed Saturday’s unveiling of the economic portion of the Trump administration’s “deal of the century” Mideast peace plan. It calls for a combination of public and private financing and targets at least a million new jobs for Palestinians.

The initiative was posted to the White House website ahead of this week’s two-day conference in Bahrain, which the PA in boycotting. The U.S. has called the Palestinian Authority decision not to attend a mistake that would only serve to hurt its own people.