US Seeks to Hold Palestinians Hostage

The US administration's decision to waive a law calling for the relocation of its embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Beit al-Muqaddas is to sway public opinion and coerce the Palestinians into making concessions, said a lawmaker.

The US Senate passed a resolution on June 5 calling on President Donald Trump to make a major break with both his Democratic and Republican predecessors and move the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Beit ul-Muqaddas.

The senate move came shortly after Trump signed a waiver overriding a 1995 law requiring that the embassy be transferred, kicking the can down the road in the hopes that the delay will give him momentum to broker peace in the Middle East.

The White House later said in a statement that the delay was only in the interest of serving a possible peace deal and the move would happen eventually.

In a recent interview with ICANA, Mohammad Javad Jamali, a member of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, described the move as a sign of "US carrot and stick policy."

He said "this is just to hold the Palestinians hostage, which apparently is a "threadbare scenario."

  Futile Bids

Dismissing claims by US officials to "give peace another chance" as a sham, Jamali said "the Americans have a record of passing legislation against Palestinians only to veto it later by themselves," he said, branding the US action as another  publicity stunt.

He said efforts for the so-called two-state solution would be "futile", calling on the Palestinian authorities not to succumb to US ploys.

The two-state solution envisages an independent state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel, west of the Jordan River.

The boundary between the two states is still subject to dispute and negotiation, with Palestinian and Arab leadership insisting on the "1967 borders", which is not accepted by the occupying power.

Most Arabs want a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders before Israel seized the West Bank, East Beit ul-Muqaddas and Gaza.

Israel has described the 1967 lines as indefensible and has said it would never return to them.

Iran, which does not recognize Israel, is totally opposed to the idea.

Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has denounced the two-state solution, saying any effort to put the plan in place is doomed.

"Our demand is freedom of Palestine, not part of Palestine. Any plan that partitions Palestine is totally rejected. Palestine spans from the river [Jordan] to the [Mediterranean] sea, nothing less."