The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Michael Link, described the US peace plan - announced by President Donald Trump - as false and establishing only one and a half states.
Link said in a statement that the American plan completely undermines the Palestinians' right to self-determination, noting that it offers a solution for the establishment of one state (Israel) and half of the state (Palestine).
The plan, announced by Trump last Tuesday, includes the establishment of a Palestinian state in the form of an archipelago connected by bridges and tunnels with no airport or seaport, while making occupied Jerusalem the alleged unified capital of Israel.
The UN official said the plan was unbalanced and tilted in favor of one side of the conflict, and the Palestinian state - according to what is known as the "Deal of the Century" - would, if established, be a completely new entity in the records of modern political science.
Link stressed that the plan is not a recipe for a just and lasting peace, and the Palestinian state will be an archipelago scattered from non-contiguous lands surrounded by Israel on all sides, without external borders, and it does not have airspace and does not have the right to form an army to defend its security.
He added that the plan ignores practically every major principle of international law, will turn the rules-based international system upside down, and will permanently establish the tragic oppression of the Palestinians on the ground.
Link also criticized allowing Israel to annex 30% of the West Bank lands and legalizing 240 Israeli settlements according to the American plan.
He said that international law prohibits the annexation of Palestinian lands, starting with the United Nations Charter in 1945, explaining that since 1967 the Security Council has declared this basic principle on 8 occasions in relation to the Israeli occupation, the last of which was in December 2016 when the council stressed the inadmissibility of the acquisition On the ground by force.
As for British Foreign Secretary Dominic Rap, he expressed his country's concern over the possibility of Israel annexing parts of the West Bank.
The British minister's statement said that any such unilateral step would harm the new efforts to resume peace negotiations and contradict international law.
In turn, the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, affirmed on Friday that "the Arabs will not abandon the Palestinians," during his meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the eve of a meeting at the headquarters of the League in Cairo at the ministerial level on the American peace plan.
For his part, Abbas renewed his rejection of any negotiations or understandings with the Israelis without Jerusalem.
During his meeting with Aboul Gheit, Abbas called on the Arab world to stand by the Palestinian stance, stressing that there is no peace, no plan, no understanding, and no negotiation without Jerusalem.
Abbas’s comments came after a call by several Arab countries - particularly Egypt and Saudi Arabia - to start direct negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis under American sponsorship, against the background of the announcement of the "Deal of the Century".
In turn, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday - while heading to London - that the Palestinians "are free to make a counter-offer if they think it is more appropriate."