The Palestinian Authority supports the occupation and settlements (of Western Sahara)
In a working visit to Morocco, a Palestinian delegation met with the leader of opposition party l’Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires, known as USFP, according to Arabic daily Al Ittihad Al Ichtiraki in its Friday issue.
USFP leader Driss Lachgar discussed the Moroccan Sahara with Abbas Zaki, member of the Fatah Central Committee.
According to the daily, both leaders agreed that “the issue of the Moroccan Sahara and that of Palestine will now be at the center of their diplomatic cooperation.”
The meeting was held in presence of the Ambassador of Palestine to Morocco, Amine Ahmed Mohamed Abou Hassira, as well as three other Fatah leaders alongside Abba Zaki.
The working visit of the Palestinian delegation comes just weeks after Palestinian Foreign Minister Ryad El Maliki visited Morocco and declared Palestine’s support for Morocco’s territorial integrity.
According to the same source, Minister El Maliki stated Palestine’s position in favor of “a settlement of the conflict within the framework of Morocco’s sovereignty.”
“There is no need to make any comparison between the Palestinian cause and the Moroccan Sahara issue,” El Maliki stressed.
“We struggle against the Israeli occupation since 1948 and Morocco struggles for the achievement of its territorial integrity,” he added.The Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara is about as clear-cut example of occupation as you can imagine. In 1975, the International Court of Justice ruled that Morocco and Mauritania has no legal claims on the land and that the native Sahrawi had the right to self-determination. Immediately afterwards, Morocco took over two thirds of the country and Mauritania the other third. In 1978, Mauritania made a peace deal with the Sahrawi and gave them their third of the land - and Morocco took that over as well (although a percentage of the and is controlled by the Sahrawis.) . Hundreds of thousands of Moroccan settlers have moved to the territory under army protection, and they now outnumber the natives by as much as 3-1.
Most nations consider Morocco's annexation of western Sahara to be illegal. .
For Palestinians to side with the occupiers and settlers in Western Sahara shows that their claims to be on the side of international law (and on the side of people under occupation) is a joke.
Notice also that while the Sahrawis make no claim against Morocco itself, this Palestinian foreign minister says explicitly that Israel is occupying Palestinian territory since 1948 - meaning that he admits that the PLO goal is to gain all of Israel. The claims of "occupation" to the West are a smokescreen.
