A Palestinian study said that the visit of US president Donald Trump to Saudi Arabia and the occupied Palestinian territories represents a break from the historic US position especially the position of the former US president Barack Obama on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
The study published by the Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies Madar affirmed that the Palestinian side seemed to be absent in this visit.
It noted that three central positions surfaced in the Israeli debate about Trump’s visit and statements.
The first position is represented by the right wing who believes that Trump’s statements are fully consistent with the Israeli government’s policies and with the Israeli right wing.
The second represented by the Israeli opposition considered Trump’s policies in line with its beliefs which it called for during the past years against the current positions of the Israeli government.
Those representing the third position believe that Trump did not do anything because he knows nothing and has no vision of neither the conflict nor the settlement between the two sides.
The study said that Trump tried to satisfy everyone in his speeches and that he did not mention anything about the political rights and did not confirm the legitimacy of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories. It added that what Trump said about Israel and the Jewish people was a historic emotional speech that has no political indication.
On the statements Trump made in Israel the study found that they were not different in content from his remarks during Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the United States in February 2017. Trump maintained his position on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict despite his visit to Riyadh and his meeting with Arab and Muslim leaders it said.
The study underlined that Trump did not address the Israeli settlements as an obstacle to peace and did not mention the Palestinian right of self-determination. Instead he pointed to Iran as a central threat to the Middle East labeled Hamas as a terrorist movement and asked the Palestinian Authority to stop supporting and funding “terrorism”.
The only difference detected was that after Trump’s visit to Riyadh he started to use the term “extremist ideology” instead of “Islamic terrorism” according to the study.
The study concluded that the US president’s visit to the Middle East showed support for the Arab central position regarding the regional environment and represented an adoption of the Israeli position with regard to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
In light of this the study pointed out that the Palestinian side was absent in Trump’s visit as he avoided talking about the Palestinian issue in his visit to Riyadh and ignored the Palestinian rights in his visit to Israel.
