Time for US to end backing Israel’s perpetual crimes: Hamas

The political bureau chief of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has called upon US President-elect Donald Trump to withdraw the longstanding American support for Israel, stating that the Tel Aviv regime is a “burden” for Washington.

“Now is the time to acknowledge that Israel has become a burden on you [the US]… We call on you to deal fairly with the Palestinians and end your policy of overlooking Israel’s perpetual crimes,” Khaled Meshaal said in a speech delivered via video conference at a rally in Turkey’s most populous city of Istanbul on Thursday.

“It would be wrong of Trump to give the green light to Israel to do as it pleases in Palestine… We urge him to reconsider his country’s policy of unqualified bias toward Israel,” Meshaal added.

The Hamas leader noted that “there can be no stability in the [Middle East] region without recognizing the rights of Palestine.”

Earlier, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri (seen below) had asked Trump to “bring justice to the Palestinians.”

“The Palestinian people are not very much concerned about the changes in American policies towards the Palestinian cause because such a policy is constant and is based on bias in favor of the Israeli occupation. However, we urge the American president to re-evaluate this policy and to work on bringing justice to the Palestinians,” he commented.

This comes as Trump’s top Israel adviser Jason Greenblatt told Israel’s Army Radio on Thursday that the US president-elect was not going to condemn Israel’s land expropriation policies, and did not view illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank an obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

The comments came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Trump as Israel’s “great friend” in a congratulatory message on his election victory.

“You are a great friend of Israel. Over the years, you’ve expressed your support consistently and I deeply appreciate it,” Netanyahu said, expressing optimism that “the great alliance between” the US and Israel would be taken to “even greater heights” during Trump’s time in office.

Trump has been a staunch opponent of the so-called two–state solution, having referred to East Jerusalem al-Quds as the “undivided” or “eternal” capital of the Israeli regime.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.

The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.

The Palestinian Authority wants the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinians state, with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.