Pan-Islamic Organisation of Islamic Cooperation rejects Trump’s peace plan
Body calls on its 57 member states not to cooperate with US proposal, saying it ‘does not meet the minimum aspirations and legitimate rights of the Palestinian people’
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Monday rejected US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the Middle East, calling on its 57 member states not to help implement it.
The pan-Islamic body, which represents more than 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, “rejects this US-Israeli plan as it does not meet the minimum aspirations and legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and contradicts the terms of reference of the peace process,” it said in a statement.
A meeting of foreign ministers at OIC headquarters in the Saudi city of Jeddah called on “all member states not (to) deal with this plan or cooperate with the US administration efforts to enforce it in any way or form.”
The Palestinians have expressed frustration and anger since Trump last Tuesday launched his administration’s plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which heavily favors the Israeli government’s positions.
Breaking with past US administrations, the plan envisions the creation of a Palestinian state in about 70 percent of the West Bank, a small handful of neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, most of the Gaza Strip and some areas of southern Israel — if the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, disarm Hamas and other terror groups in the Gaza Strip, and fulfill other conditions.
The plan also allows Israel to annex settlements, grants the Jewish state sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and overriding security control west of the Jordan River, and bars Palestinian refugees and their descendants from returning to Israel.
The OIC reiterated its support for East Jerusalem as capital of a future Palestinian state, stressing its “Arab and Islamic character.”
It said peace would “only be achieved with the end of the Israeli occupation, the full withdrawal from the territory of the State of Palestine in particular the holy city of Al-Quds Al-Sharif (Jerusalem) and the other Arab territories occupied since (the) June 1967 (Six Day War).”
The Arab League on Saturday also rejected the controversial plan, saying at a meeting in Cairo that it did not meet the “minimum rights” of the Palestinians.
They insisted on a two-state solution that includes a Palestinian state based on borders before the 1967 war — when Israel captured the West Bank from Jordanian control and Gaza from Egyptian control — and with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced in Cairo that he would cut all ties with Israel and the US.
“We are informing you that there will be no relations with you (Israel) and the United States, including on security cooperation,” he said.
But he has made that threat many times in the past, and a senior Palestinian official told The Times of Israel on Sunday that the security ties remain intact.
“Until now, the coordination is ongoing, but relations are extremely tense,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
