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Former Palestinian cabinet member Hassan Asfour said in a July 14, 2022 interview on Alghad TV (Egypt) that unlike previous American presidents who considered the Palestinians to be politically significant and who at least had Middle East peace plans that the Palestinians could reject, U.S. President Joe Biden is so weak that he visited the Palestinian territories empty-handed. He elaborated that Biden is not strong enough to provide direct aid to the Palestinians, to remove the terrorist group designation from the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), or to even meet with the family of Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a U.S. citizen who was recently killed during a firefight between Israeli forces and Palestinian terrorists. Comparing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the Holocaust, Asfour also criticized Biden for visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem but not meeting with the families of Palestinian casualties. For more about Hassan Asfour, MEMRI TV Clip No. 3595.
Hassan Asfour: "[Biden] is a president incapable of opening a consulate, incapable of opening an office [for the Palestinian Authority] in Washington, incapable of removing the PLO from the terrorist list, incapable of restoring your aid... I am talking about the financial aid, not about the humanitarian aid to hospitals. By the way, people should not be led astray. When he was talking about aid to the Palestinian Authority, he was not talking about supporting the Palestinian Authority's budget, because they have suspicions about it. He talked about humanitarian aid to the Palestinian Authority – hospitals and other things that are not related to the Palestinian Authority's budget. Furthermore, this president is incapable of meeting the family of Shireen Abu Akleh – who had an American passport – in Jerusalem. He told them to come to Washington.
"How can such a president be expected to provide you with a political solution?
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"He went to Yad Vashem and made a tearful display. Look at his picture. Is Yad Vashem one thing, and the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed by the Israelis another thing altogether? How can we expect such a president to be involved in a political solution? Even Biden's predecessors employed a more just political language, with regard to the political solution. Trump presented a deal, which we rejected, but at least he presented one. Biden came empty-handed. He did not even offer a solution for us to reject. Imagine that. He did not bring us an offer that we could read and reject, because he does not consider you to be a force [to reckon with]. He considers you negligible, so he offers you political peanuts, and we accept it, content in our condition.
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"Trump had a plan, Bush had a plan, Clinton had a plan, which were all rejected by us. No problem. Offer us a plan that we can reject, brother, just so we know that you consider us to have some political value."
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