Iran Press/ Middle East: A statement issued by the PA Foreign Ministry shortly after the new government was sworn in on Sunday evening said that the Palestinians do not expect a change in the policies of Israel.
“We estimate that Netanyahu’s policies will not change, and they could even be worse,” the ministry said. It pointed out that some of the leaders of the new Israeli government, including Bennet and New Hope leader Gideon Sa’ar, are considered to be on the right of Netanyahu.
According to the PA, the Palestinians will judge the new government not on the basis of the principle of being with or against Netanyahu, or whether he is at the head of the government, but rather on its position towards the Palestinians, especially the establishment of a Palestinian state, settlements, and the annexation of parts of the West Bank, as well as the two-state solution.
The Palestinians will also judge the new government on the basis of its attitude towards “urgent” issues such as the flag march planned by Jewish groups in Jerusalem this week, the evacuation of a settler outpost near Nablus, visits by Jews to al-Aqsa Mosque compound on the Temple Mount and “threats to expel” Arab families from their homes in the eastern Jerusalem al Quds neighborhoods of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, the PA ministry added.
The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), for its part, said that the repetition of the Israeli electoral process “within the Zionist entity is evidence of the depth of the political crisis that this entity is experiencing.”
Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum said that the new government “will not change the nature of our dealings with it as an occupying settlement entity that must be resisted, and our rights taken from it by all means and forms of resistance, including the armed resistance.”
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