Trump Administration Makes Good on Threat to Close PLO Washington Office

The Trump administration on Monday announced it will close the Washington, D.C. office of the Palestine Liberation Organization as it threatened last November that it would do unless the Palestinians engage in “meaningful negotiations” with Israel. Explaining its decision in a statement, the State Department said, “PLO leadership has condemned a US peace plan they have not yet seen and refused to engage with the US government with respect to peace efforts and otherwise.” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert confirmed a link between the administration’s action and the Palestinian decision to bring cases alleging war crimes by Israel before the International Criminal Court at The Hague, calling the action consistent with US concerns about the matter of the ICC. Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee, responded by calling it another “collective punishment of the Palestinian people for working with the ICC against Israeli war crimes.” Dr. Husam Zomlot, who headed the Palestinian mission to the United States, charged the Trump administration with “weaponizing humanitarian and developmental aid as political blackmail.” The US simultaneously has another issue with the ICC: Monday’s threat by National Security Adviser John Bolton to ban ICC judges and prosecutors from entering the United States if the ICC investigates American soldiers and CIA operatives serving in Afghanistan. In a statement, the ICC said in response to the US threat that it will continue to do its work “undeterred.”