Israel has declined to participate in the Ramallah meeting organized by Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE ministers. The foreign ministers of five Arab nations who had scheduled to visit the occupied West Bank this weekend have denounced Israel’s move to thwart their plans.
The ministers criticized “Israel’s move to cancel the visit of the delegation to Ramallah on Sunday to meet with the president of the State of Palestine, Mahmud Abbas”, the Jordanian foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday. Egyptian, Jordanian, Qatari, Saudi, and United Arab Emirates ministers were supposed to join Turkiye in the meeting.
Israel late on Friday declared that it will not permit the gathering of Arab foreign ministers, whom would have needed Israeli permission to attend the occupied West Bank from Jordan due to Israel’s control of the Palestinian territory’s borders and air space.
The Palestinian Authority – which to this day has not condemned the October 7 massacre – sought to host at Ramallah a provocative gathering of foreign ministers of Arab nations to discuss the promotion of the establishment of a Palestinian state,” the Israeli official stated late on Friday.
In a tweet on X, Hussein Al Sheikh, deputy chair of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), called Israel’s move a “dangerous escalation that exhibits arrogant, provocative, and unprecedented behavior.” We are studying, with our Arab brothers, a response to this decision,” he tweeted.
The Israeli action preceded an international conference, to be co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, which is scheduled for June 17-20 in New York to debate the Palestinian statehood issue. Israel has faced mounting pressure from the United Nations and European nations which prefer a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict where there would be an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
French President Emmanuel Macron stated on Friday that recognizing a Palestinian state was “not just a moral obligation but a political imperative.” Israeli troops opened fire last week near a diplomatic convoy near the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, prompting international outrage. Diplomats from the European Union, Britain, Russia and China were in the convoy.
