Palestinians skewer US team’s Mideast peace mission

Bloomberg

The Trump team’s mission to the Middle East will run into a dead end if it tries to dodge political issues at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s spokesman said.
The lead US Middle East peace negotiators, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, have been visiting with leaders in the region this week as they work on a peace plan. They’re trying to drum up support for improving the Palestinians’ economic prospects on the assumption that will create more conducive conditions for peacemaking.
The Palestinians — who broke off contacts with the US in December over its Jerusalem policy — want the focus to be on resolving issues such as borders, the status
of the holy city and refugees, and not on bolstering the economies of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian Authority spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said in a statement on Saturday.
“The American administration must understand the important need to stop pursuing imaginary political alternatives and projects aimed at splitting the Palestinian homeland to prevent the establishment of our Palestinian state,” Abu Rudeina said.
“The right address for achieving a just and lasting peace that cannot be bypassed, neither regionally nor internationally, passes through the Palestinian decision-makers represented by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and members of the Palestinian leadership,” he said.
Palestinian leaders have been shunning the US over President Donald Trump’s December announcement that the American Embassy would be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, whose eastern sector they seek for the capital of a future state.