The man who served as the Palestinian Authority's first-ever foreign minister and currently sits on Fatah's Central Committee asked on Feb. 1 if terrorists need to resume hijacking planes and attacking airports to make the world once again care about the Palestinian cause for an independent state.
Nabil Shaath, who is also a former chief Palestinian negotiator, made his comments to the PA's Awdha TV during an interview that focused on the peace process with Israel and frustration with America's role as an honest broker, according to Israeli newspapers Haaretz and the Times of Israel.
The interview was translated Sunday by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
When asked about the current French initiative to reignite the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Shaath said, "Well, anything is better than American control of the negotiations. Anything. The US has never been a reliable honest broker. Never. It is the strategic ally of Israel. Period. Therefore any discussion of a different formula is a positive thing."
But, Shaath added that "an international conference is not what is needed. What is needed is a smaller framework. Today, at the African Union summit, President [Mahmoud] Abbas reiterated that we want something similar to the 5+1 framework" used to negotiate the Iran nuclear deal.
He acknowledged that the United States would inevitably be part of such a framework but said he wants a small entity with "France, Germany, Britain, the EU, Russia, China, Brazil, India. From the Arab countries we want Egypt at least."
Shaath also discussed what he believes is Western indifference to the ongoing violence in the Middle East.
"If the Syrian problem had not been exported to Europe through the refugees on the one hand and terrorism on the other, the Europeans would not have cared even if the entire Syrian people had died," Shaath said.
"But when all of a sudden there were four million Syrian refugees in Europe, 1.2 million of them in Germany alone, and when this was accompanied by Islamic State operations in France and elsewhere, all these countries began to fear that IS might have infiltrated through the refugees. And this started a debate about racial transformation in Europe with the entrance of non-white, non-European, non-Anglo-Saxon races, like the Syrian refugees, the Africans and others. This is what made the Syrian problem the most pressing from their perspective."
The Fatah party member then added, "I always say to these people, after I tell them about Syria and IS: ‘Do we have to hijack your planes and destroy your airports again to make you care about our cause? Are you waiting for us to cut off your oil supply? You always wait for things to reach boiling point and explode, causing you harm, before you intervene to end the crimes and violations."
Shaath has been a prominent member of the Palestinian political establishment for decades, having had close ties with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and currently serving as an advisor to PA president Mahmoud Abbas. He even served as acting PA prime minister in 2005.
Despite being viewed as corrupt by the Palestinian public amid calls for his arrest, Shaath has never been imprisoned and has established close ties to European and other foreign governments.