TEHRAN – Just like last year, the U.S. State Department has barred the Palestinian Authority delegation, including President Mahmoud Abbas, to attend the UN General Assembly in New York next week. 

This move by the Trump administration comes as Palestine is recognized by 157 UN member states, more than 80 percent of the organization’s members.

The decision shows that the U.S., in close cooperation with Israel, is standing against the will of the international community for Palestinian diplomatic representation and statehood.

The reasons that the U.S. has cited for refusing to issue visas for the Palestinian delegation are laughable.
 
As part of its justification for denying visas to Palestinian officials, the U.S. explicitly cited Palestinian efforts to pursue Israel through international courts and secure greater international recognition for a Palestinian state.

“(The Palestinian Authority was) taking actions to internationalize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including through the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ) [and] seeking to bypass negotiations through seeking unilateral recognition,” the State Department said.

This statement by the State Department clearly shows that the U.S. wants Palestinians to be silent in the face of the unstoppable Israeli appropriation of their lands and brutality against them, especially against Gazans, which reached unprecedented levels since the creation of Israel in 1948. 

In view of the Trump administration, it is an unforgivable sin to say that Palestine is facing unstoppable land theft and violence. The Trump administration wants Palestinians to act as servants of the U.S. and Israel and not cry out against violence and injustice.

Whether Trump’s administration likes it or not, it is for eight decades that the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become “internationalized” and the U.S. has not been an impartial mediator to resolve this old wound. If the U.S. had not been advocating Israel by closing its eyes to the realities, there would have been hope that the issue could have been resolved. Through its unjustified support for Israel, the U.S. has acted as a barrier to ending the eight-decade conflict.

The Palestinian Authority has the right to seek “unilateral recognition” of other countries because the U.S. has prevented the recognition of an independent Palestinian state by the UN Security Council. 

Such a demand from Palestinians not to seek recognition is extremely unexpected, unjustified, and an ill-conceived perception.

The world is in favor of Palestine

Whether the U.S. likes it or not, the world's public opinion is in favor of Palestinians. Even most American citizens and a considerable percentage of their politicians have turned against Israel for its genocide in Gaza.
   
According to a Quinnipiac poll released in June, nearly two-thirds of Democrats and more than half of independents think the United States is too supportive of Israel. And in mid-July, more than half the Democrats in the House of Representatives voted for a bill to cut off U.S. military aid to Israel.

Many Israelis themselves admit that Israel has been committing indescribable crimes against Palestinian by enjoying the U.S. shield. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has openly acknowledged that Americans view Israel as a “baby killer”.

 In part of its statement, the State Department has said it was extending the restrictions on PA officials as "a consequence of their failure to reform, contrary to their commitments to the United States, and their ongoing activities that undermine the prospects for peace."

It is true that the Palestinian Authority is corrupt and refuses reforms, but the U.S. move in refusing visa for the Palestinian team does not convince anybody. Yet the claim that “their activities undermine the prospects for peace” is a superstitious statement and contravenes the realities that the world has been seeing all throughout these years.

It is Israel that has been undermining every initiative for peace. The land-for-peace initiative proposed by the late Saudi King Abdullah, which was endorsed by Arab leaders in 2002, left no justification for rejecting it. This initiative was re-endorsed in later years by the Arab rulers but was dismissed by Israel.

The claim that the Palestinian Authority’s moves go against peace is a fallacy. There is only one goal and it is that the United States, especially under the administration of Donald Trump, is working in tandem with Israel to hollow out Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the Oct. 7 event is now being used a pretext for that purpose. 

Such words that the PA’s activities derail peace are totally unacceptable and don’t convince even the most simple-minded people who have been observing the behavior of Israel against Palestinians and the policies of the United States in favor of Israel.