WASHINGTON: Palestinian leaders are in uproar after the US State Department´s website removed the territories from its list of countries and areas, following a slew of pro-Israel actions by President Donald Trump.The official website no longer has a separate entry for the Palestinian Authority. An archived version of the website from the 2009-2017 presidency of Barack Obama shows that "Palestinian Territories" were listed among countries and areas both on the opening page and in the section of the Near East bureau.A State Department official played down the shift when asked on Tuesday."The website is being updated. There has been no change to our policy," she said.She did not say if the website, which recently underwent a redesign, would again include a separate entry for the Palestinian territories.But Palestinian leaders doubted that the change -- which follows the removal of the term "occupied territories" in some US publications and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu´s musings of annexing much of the West Bank -- was unintentional.The Palestinian cabinet, after a meeting chaired Monday by prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, said the move "confirms the American bias towards Israel."The cabinet said that the shift "cannot override the Palestinian rights, which the world countries have unanimously recognized," as quoted by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its veteran negotiator, said the removal "is not about US national interests. This is about advancing the agenda of the council of Israeli Settlers.""Deciding not to see the truth does not mean canceling its existence," he tweeted.Dan Shapiro, who served as US ambassador to Israel under Obama, called the website change "crazy.""Palestinians are not going anywhere. US interests require engaging with them. Israel itself still cooperates with the Palestinian Authority in various ways," he tweeted.Trump has been unabashedly supportive of Israel and its right-wing leader, taking several landmark moves including recognizing bitterly contested Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state.He has also slashed funding to the Palestinian refugee agency and recently encouraged Netanyahu to ban entry of two Democratic lawmakers, both Muslim women, who have been critical of Israel.The Palestinian Authority has said that it no longer considers the United States an honest broker and has refused Trump´s peace initiatives, boycotting a conference in June in Bahrain aimed at development of the territories.
from The News International - World https://ift.tt/345yurh
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
US State Dept under fire as site removes 'Palestinian Territories'
Related Posts:
Seas to rise dramatically even if greenhouse gases are curbedWASHINGTON: Just as an oil tanker steaming ahead at full speed cannot stop immediately, so the dramatic rise in sea levels will continue even if the world manages to slash greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2030, experts war… Read More
Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan set January goal on controversial Nile damWASHINGTON: Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan on Wednesday set a January 15 target for resolving an intensifying feud over a massive dam being constructed on Africa´s Nile River, which has raised fears of conflict over scarce water.U… Read More
Elon Musk says he is disconnecting from TwitterSAN FRANCISCO: Tesla chief Elon Musk fired off a tweet on Friday indicating that he is disconnecting from Twitter, perhaps in favor of popular news and discussion platform Reddit.Kicking the Twitter habit would be a radical c… Read More
Pentagon says awarding $10 billion cloud computing contract to MicrosoftWASHINGTON: The Pentagon said Friday it was awarding a $10 billion cloud computing contract to Microsoft, following a highly scrutinized bidding process which Amazon had been favored to win.The 10-year contract for the Joint … Read More
Latin America´s longest-serving leader Morales claims fourth termLA PAZ: Evo Morales, Latin America´s longest-serving president who Thursday claimed a fourth term as Bolivia´s president, is the country´s first indigenous head of state.A member of the Aymara people, he grew up in poverty on… Read More
0 comments:
Post a Comment