Posted on 11/07/21
| News Source: i24
'If they (the United States) want to open a consulate in Ramallah, we have no problem with that'
Israel stepped up its public opposition on Saturday to a plan by President Joe Biden's administration to reopen a US consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem, suggesting such a mission should be in the West Bank.
Under former president Donald Trump, Washington delighted Israelis and outraged Palestinians by closing the Jerusalem consulate and placing its staff within the US Embassy to Israel that was moved to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in 2018.
At a press conference on the passage of the state budget in Jerusalem alongside Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman, Yair Lapid, who serves as foreign minister and alternate prime minister, suggested that the US consulate for Palestinians be in Ramallah.
"If they (the United States) want to open a consulate in Ramallah, we have no problem with that," he said.
Ramallah is the de facto administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority and is where the office of PA President Mahmoud Abbas is located.
In Ramallah, Abbas' spokesman rejected Lapid's comments.
"We will only accept a US consulate in Jerusalem, the capital of the Palestinian state. That was what the US administration had announced and had committed itself to doing,” Nabil Abu Rudeineh told Reuters.