Palestinian PM says ‘God help us’ if Trump wins re-election

Mohammad Shtayyeh says it will be disastrous for his people and the world at large if President Trump wins

Palestinians US (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

The Palestinian prime minister said Tuesday it will be disastrous for his people and the world at large if President Donald Trump wins re-election next month.

Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said the last four years of the Trump administration have greatly harmed the Palestinians

“If we are going to live another four years with President Trump, God help us, God help you and God help the whole world,” Shtayyeh said Tuesday, repeating comments he made a day earlier in a remote meeting with European lawmakers

The comments were earlier posted on his Facebook page.

The Palestinians have traditionally refrained from taking an explicit public position in American presidential elections. Shtayyeh’s comments reflected the sense of desperation on the Palestinian side after a series of U.S. moves that have left them weakened and isolated.

The Palestinians severed ties with Trump after he recognized contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in late 2017 and subsequently moved the American Embassy to the holy city. Trump has also cut off hundreds of millions of dollars of American aid to the Palestinians, shut the Palestinian diplomatic offices in Washington and issued a Mideast plan this year that largely favored Israel. The Palestinians have rejected the plan out of hand.

The Trump administration also has persuaded two Arab countries, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel and promised that other Arab nations will follow suit. These deals have undercut the traditional Arab consensus that recognition of Israel only come in return for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal — a rare source of leverage for the Palestinians.

Shtayyeh expressed hope that a victory by the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden would raise prospects for a peace deal.

“If things are going to change in the United States I think this will reflect itself directly on the Palestinian-Israeli relationship,” he said. “And it will reflect itself also on the bilateral Palestinian-American relationship.”