Jerusalem affairs researcher Abdullah Maarouf has called the US state department’s abstention from describing the population in east Jerusalem as Palestinians “invalid” stressing that “the Palestinians are not waiting for anyone to recognize their name.”
“Neither the US state department nor the US administration have the right to give the Palestinian Jerusalemites the name they wish” Maarouf told the Palestinian Information Center (PIC).
“The Palestinians in Jerusalem have been Palestinians since the name Palestine emerged at least 4000 years ago and they are not waiting for anyone to recognize their name” he added.
He expressed his belief that such US step would “have no impact on the ground in Jerusalem nor on the nature and shape of the conflict with the occupation.”
“The current US administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the occupation state’s capital did not go beyond Trump’s throat and was rejected by the whole world in a famous resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly which considered such recognition null and void” the researcher underlined.
