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Israel will face demographic death without two-state solution: Palestinian PM

Wednesday, 31 July 2019 5:33 AM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 31 July 2019 6:33 AM ]

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh speaks at a meeting of the Socialist International organization in Ramallah on July 31, 2019. (Photo by Wafa news agency)

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh says the Israeli regime will suffer a “democratic death” if it refuses to support a two-state solution to the decades-long conflict between the two sides.

“Israel stands today before a big challenge — either the two-state solution or a demographic death,” Shtayyeh said in an address to at a meeting of the Socialist International organization in Ramallah on Tuesday.

He also noted that the Palestinians currently make up the majority population between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, estimating that there are at total of 6.8 million Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the occupied lands compared to 6.6 million Israelis.

“For the first time since 1948, the demographic balance is in favor of the Palestinians,” he said. “The Palestinians are 200,000 more than them.”

The Palestinian premier further stressed that the Israelis have to choose between the so-called two-state solution or no peace. “Either the two-state solution or a racist regime in practice and law,” he added.

Elsewhere in his speech, Shtayyeh called the administration of US President Trump “stupid” for thinking that it could make the Palestinian people surrender by recognizing Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s “capital,” transferring its embassy from Tel Aviv to the occupied city and cutting financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority.

The Palestinians, he said, would not accept less than the minimum of freedom, independence and the establishment of their sovereign state along the 1967 lines with Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital, he added.

“What is happening is dangerous for the future of Palestine, the region and the world,” he said.

Shtayyeh also lashed out at Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s Middle East envoy, for claiming at last week’s UN Security Council meeting that the Palestinians have aspiration, not right, to East Jerusalem al-Quds as their capital.

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“That (Greenblatt’s assertion) is the highest level of political blasphemy and the highest level of prejudice against the Palestinian people’s national rights," he said.

Greenblatt, along with Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, has begun a tour of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Morocco to discuss the economic chapter of a so-called peace plan, which Washington had been developing without Palestine’s consent to end the Middle East conflict in favor of Israel.

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