2024-04-30 Time: 02:33:13 (Jerusalem)
Prospects for negotiations and peace between the Palestinians and Israel have been destroyed and the hand of extremists strengthened by the surprise deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, a top Palestinian diplomat has told Sky News.
In a frank and downbeat interview, negotiator Dr Saeb Erekat said the landmark agreement between the Israeli prime minister and the Abu Dhabi crown prince, brokered by Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, was "an Arab dagger - a poisonous dagger - in my back".
"Congratulations Trump, Mohammed Bin Zayed and Netanyahu. I think you killed the two-state solution, I think you killed any possibility of negotiations and I think you destroyed the Palestinian moderate camp; Palestinians who wanted peace, prosperity, human rights, women's rights, the rule of law, accountability," Dr Erekat said.
The deal, the Abraham Accord, announced last Thursday, will see the normalisation of diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE.
It represents a dramatic shift in the geopolitics of the region and marks a significant departure in the convention that Gulf Arab countries would only recognise Israel in return for the creation of a Palestinian state.
"It really is a major blow," said Dr Erekat, who is a veteran of the long-running Palestinian-Israeli dispute.
"To call it the Abraham accord translates immediately as 'look Arabs, Mecca is yours, Jerusalem is theirs [Israel's]'.
"The way I viewed it and the shock I received actually is that 'wow, with an Arab country, Kushner managed to slap me and to kick me in the a***."
Until the announcement of the deal with the UAE, Israel had diplomatic relations with just two Arab countries, Jordan and Egypt, both signed more than 25 years ago.
The UAE deal is set to open up commerce, air links and tourism between Israel and the Gulf. Both claim it will bolster the chances of peace in the region and that other Arab states will follow.
However the Palestinians were not told about the deal in advance.
In return for diplomatic relations with the UAE, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to halt his plan to annex parts of the Palestinian Territories of the West Bank; a pledge he quickly backtracked on.
"[Netanyahu] stands up and says 'only the strong can make peace'. That's what Hamas - the harder line Palestinian faction controlling Gaza - is saying. That is what Hezbollah is saying," Dr Erekat told Sky News.
"I have been saying only we can bring peace through negotiations; through peaceful means and the prime minister of Israel stood up and said 'only the strong make peace'.
"Is this the message you are sending Palestinians - that they need to use violence in order for you to come and make peace with them?"
"What is happening is the biggest blow to moderates in this region, to people who want human rights, the rule of law, democracy. But who cares?" he said.
Asked if he accepted that the developments put the Palestinians in a position more isolated than they have been for decades, he said: "If I take your argument that you say I am alone, abandoned by my Arab brothers.
"What do you want me to do? Go on my knees to Netanyahu and Kushner? I am not going to do that."
He rejected the idea that there would be a pragmatism in accepting the current position, seizing the initiative and inviting the Americans, the Israelis and the Emiratis for talks in Ramallah.
He said the Americans and the Israelis had made clear that the only deal on the table was Mr Trump's "Deal of the Century", which would see Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and more West Bank Palestinian land taken by Israel to create Palestinian enclaves.
"You want me to be a second-class citizen, you want one state, two systems, apartheid, you want to annex my territories and you want to make Jerusalem your capital and you want me to relinquish my national rights, my rights to determination, my rights to establish a state? You think I am going to do that?" Dr Erekat said.
The Israeli occupation of the West Bank is illegal under international law. Yet the expansion of Israeli settlements there continues. Clashes between Palestinians and the Israeli security forces happen daily.
"Look - I was 12 years old when the occupation came to my hometown, Jericho. I am speaking to you from the house I was born in, in 1955.
"You have told me that I am alone, abandoned and so on. I am standing up with an empty chest facing Israel. I am standing tall with international law; the rule of law," Dr Erekat added.
"Netanyahu tried everything in the book: demolitions, confiscation of land, settlements, ethnic cleansing, extrajudicial killing, you name it, collective punishment, war crimes.
"But at the end of the day, what are you going to do with me?"
