A senior leader of the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement has called on the United States' president-elect, Joe Biden, to rectify the unjust political trajectory, which the administration of his predecessor Donald Trump adopted towards Palestine and Palestinian people.
“The unjust policies have turned the United States into an accomplice in [Israel’s] injustice and acts of aggression, inflicted damage on the regional and global stability, and undermined Washington’s ability to [help] resolve conflicts,” the head of Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, said in a statement.
He added, “Over the past decades, Palestinian people have suffered from US administrations’ bias in favor of the occupying regime of Israel. Trump’s administration was the worst of all as to its support for the Tel Aviv regime at the expense of national Palestinian rights.”
The Hamas official then urged Biden to renounce the so-called deal of the century unveiled by Trump on the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, revoke his recognition of occupied Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s capital and move the US embassy back to Tel Aviv.
Haniyeh also called for reversal of the Trump administration’s decision in September 2018 to end funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
He urged the incoming US administration to respect the Palestinian nation’s will, their democratic choices and popular struggle, and to refrain from pressuring regional countries to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel.
Trump’s "deal of the century" initiative blatantly undermines Palestinians’ right to statehood in exchange for vague promises of basic economic opportunities.
The highly provocative scheme, which further denies the right of return for Palestinian refugees to their homeland, is also in complete disregard of UN Security Council resolutions and has been rejected by the vast majority of the international community.
Trump sparked controversy by officially recognizing Jerusalem al-Quds as the Israeli capital in December 2017, before moving his country's embassy there from Tel Aviv in May 2018.
Guatemala and Paraguay later followed in Washington’s footstep, before the latter reversed its decision after just four months.
Honduras has also said it aims to move its embassy to Jerusalem al-Quds by the end of 2020. Brazil and the Dominican Republican are also considering the move.
Israel lays claim to the entire Jerusalem al-Quds, but the international community views the city’s eastern sector as occupied territory and Palestinians consider it the capital of their future state.