US Mideast Plan Denounced in Pro-Palestine Rallies

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians took part in nationwide rallies on Friday to mark the annual day of solidarity with the Palestinians and condem Washington's proposed plan to resolve the decades-long conflict between Israel and Palestine. 
International Quds Day, which is marked on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan, was initiated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late founder of the Islamic Republic, after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Opposition to Israel is an ideological touchstone for Iran that backs Palestinian and Lebanese groups opposed to peace with Israel, which it does not recognize. 
A number of high-ranking officials, including the president, the parliament speaker and the judiciary chief, attended the rallies, which lasted through Friday prayer ceremonies. Similar events were held by pro-Palestine demonstrators in other countries.

'Deal of Century' 

In remarks to reporters during the demonstrations in Tehran, President Hassan Rouhani said the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan put forward by the administration of US President Donald Trump is doomed, ISNA reported. 
Washington has touted the plan as the "deal of the century", but Palestinian officials have already spurned it, believing it will be heavily biased in favor of Israel. 
Trump's team, headed by his Middle East adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, is set to unveil the plan at an international investment conference in Bahrain in late June, Reuters reported. 
The summit aims to encourage investment in the Palestinian territories by Arab countries, before grappling with the difficult political issues at the heart of the conflict.
The Palestinian leadership has refused to deal with the Trump administration since the president recognized Beit-ul-Moqaddas as Israel's capital in 2017.
"The so-called 'deal of the century' will definitely be a bankruptcy of the century for those who proposed it and will be a failure," Rouhani said, while reiterating Iran's support for the Palestinians. 
He said there will be no substantial support for the plan just as US decisions to recognize Beit-ul-Moqaddas as Israel's capital and Israeli sovereignty over occupied Syrian Golan Heights were not welcomed and supported on the international stage.  
On March 25, Trump signed a presidential proclamation officially recognizing the highlands on the border with Syria as Israeli territory.
Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War. It occupies roughly two-thirds of the wider Golan Heights as a de facto result of the conflict. It moved to formally annex the territory in 1981—an action unanimously rejected at the time by the UN Security Council.

Hidden Agenda 

Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei also said on Wednesday that the US plan is meant to deflect the world's attention from the issue of Palestine so that it would slip into oblivion. 
"But it is destined to fail," he was quoted as saying by his official website. "Defending Palestine is not just an Islamic duty but a humanitarian issue." 
In a tweet on Thursday, Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said, "Al-Quds is neither America's to give away nor Israel's to take. And NOT for brutal accomplices to try to buy." 
"Quds belongs to Palestine & Palestinians: history shows that whoever ignores this is condemned to ignominious failure," he wrote, adding that the Islamic Republic will continue to stand with Palestine.  
In addition, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said in a statement issued on Wednesday that the US peace proposal will fail, Fars News Agency reported. 
The only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is "withdrawal of Zionists from the occupied lands and return of Palestinian refugees to hold free elections", it noted.