Israel’s integration means marginalizing Palestinian issue: Palestine

By Awad al-Rujoub

RAMALLAH, Palestine (AA) – Palestine warned Sunday that Israel’s integration in the Middle East region will marginalize the Palestinian issue.

The warning comes as US President Joe Biden's top adviser Brett McGurk arrived in Riyadh to discuss a possible normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, according to US news portal Axios.

“Palestine rejects all attempts to marginalize the Palestinian issue amid efforts to deepen Israel’s integration in the Middle East,” the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It warned that Israel’s regional integration “poses a danger to the Palestinian issue, the peace process references and the Arab peace initiative.”

Proposed by Saudi Arabia in 2002, the Arab Peace Initiative calls for normalizing relations with Israel in return for withdrawal from Arab territories occupied in 1967.

“Integrating Israel further in the Middle East means pursuing the path of former US President Donald Trump’s so-called Abraham Accords,” the ministry said.

Under US sponsorship, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain signed agreements to normalize their ties with Israel in September 2020. The move was followed later by Sudan and Morocco. The Palestinians have decried the normalization agreements as a “stab in the back”.

Six Arab countries have diplomatic ties with Israel starting with Egypt in 1979, Jordan in 1994, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan in 2020.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar