Husam Zomlot is the Palestinian front man in Washington. Born in a
Gaza refugee camp, he has a doctorate in economics from the University
of London and was a research fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center. Now in
his mid-forties, he represents a new generation of Palestinian
politicians. Last spring, he arrived in the United States on a wave of
optimism that President Trump would reinvigorate peace negotiations, led
by his adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Zomlot had unusual
diplomatic access to Kushner and others in the White House. But
relations between the United States and the Palestinian Authority
plummeted to their lowest point in a quarter century—since the historic
Oslo Accord, in 1993—after Trump’s decision, on December 6th, to
recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the U.S. Embassy there.
The announcement enraged the octogenarian Palestinian President, Mahmoud
Abbas, who declared that Washington was no longer an honest broker of
peace. Abbas is refusing to see Vice-President Mike Pence during his
visit to Israel on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. On the eve of Pence’s
trip, Zomlot reflected on the state of diplomacy. The interview has been
edited and condensed for length.

After Abbas’s speech, what is the state of the peace process?

He did not say that “I don’t want negotiations.” He said, “I want
negotiations, I want it now. But the table should not be an American
table only.” We will not go back to the old business that allowed the
U.S. to be the sole arbitrator and sole mediator for twenty-six years.
The sixth of December [was] a reversal, a walking back, a reneging
from a very clear promise. Therefore, that game is no longer possible.

You didn’t take Jerusalem off the table. You took the table altogether.
No one, no Palestinian, would ever be able to sit on that table. Good
luck!

But you’re not ruling out going back to a peace table that includes
the United States?

If President Trump wants to be the ultimate dealmaker, as he told us
many times, he should pause and think of what he did on the sixth of
December. It does not qualify him or his Administration to be in on this
process. Pence came out and said, “I am going now to Egypt and to Jordan
and to Israel. And now that we have taken Jerusalem off the table, I am
going to discuss with the Arab leaders how can we move on.” We will not
sit at any table that Jerusalem is not in the middle, in the heart of
it. We want a genuine peace process, yes. We want to negotiate with
Israel. Yes! But not that way.

What happens next?

The alternative is not deadlock. The U.S. could be substituted or
replaced. That’s why President Abbas is going to Brussels this month—to
call on the world to take its responsibility.

European leadership has been tried before.

The fact that it didn’t work does not mean we have to stop trying. The
fact that it might not happen for a year or two does not mean it has to
go in the wrong direction. No process is better than a bad agreement or
a bad process. We have tried bad process for twenty-six years. It has
burnt our limbs. Our fingers. Our butts. Enough.

The Palestinian Authority no longer recognizes the United States as an
honest broker, but it’s not going to sever relations?

This is the United States, it has been a long journey between the two.
We are not letting go. We are doubling our efforts. Actually, the
instructions I received from President Abbas—I was with him only a few
days ago—[were] double your efforts to reach out to every government
institution, to the Congress, particularly to the public. Explain our
side of the story.

At its meeting on January 14th, the Palestinian Central Council called
for suspending the P.L.O.’s recognition of Israel.

Israel’s policy is to swallow whatever is left of the West Bank. Our
recognition is not unconditional. It is not eternal. It is not a free
meal. It comes with reciprocation, and [Israel] hasn’t reciprocated
for twenty-five years. It is about time that you do so now.

[Abbas] gave instructions in the council, publicly, to strengthen,
heighten, double the work with the Israeli public. Our work with the
peace camp, our work with all those who believe in a
different tomorrow and different future, must start yesterday. And we
want to step it up. So he is betting on our ability to link with growing
circles of Israeli society who might see this to be fatalistic.

So Abbas is still committed to the two-state solution?

He is the only one who is committed to a two-state solution. He’s the
last samurai.

What do you understand about the prospect that the Trump
Administration will propose a mini-Palestinian state that has its
capital in Abu Dis?

Short of a state of Palestine on the 1967 borders with our consent about
very minor swaps of equal land in value and volume, with East Jerusalem,
all of it, the capital of the state of Palestine, and resolving the
outstanding issues based on international legality—short of that, they
can have however many jokes they want. We have one power—the power of
“no.” We will not succumb.

In a poll among Palestinians last month, more than seventy per cent of respondents said that they no longer believe the Trump Administration will come up with a peace plan. Have the Palestinians
given up on the peace process?

The majority of Palestinians think the two-state solution is the best
solution. And the majority of Palestinians now think that the Israelis
are killing it, so they don’t see hope. The same thing in Israel, by the
way. The majority are with the two-state solution, but the majority
don’t think it’s going to happen—around the same numbers, also seventy
per cent. We’re identical in so many manners.

This month, the Administration announced that it would withhold
sixty-five million dollars of the hundred and twenty-five million
dollars pledged to the United Nations for Palestinian refugees. What
kind of impact does that have?

Catastrophic. This is not a bilateral issue. This is a U.S. multilateral
commitment to the international system, not to us. Millions of people’s
daily lives, as in food, education, basic needs, depend on it.

If humanitarian needs are so important to the Palestinian leaders, why
don’t they go back to the negotiating table?

Because our rights are not for sale. There’s no trade-off. If we have to
trade humanitarian service for a coercive political agenda, I think the
Palestinian people are going to pick starving a little bit.

That could be for a long time.

I don’t think this is exclusive to the Palestinians. If the American
people are subjected to this, too, they would do the same. This is human
behavior: “I’m going to have to survive.” It is unacceptable that you
link political agendas to humanitarian services. That is unprecedented.

You have probably engaged with the Trump Administration as much
as, or more than, any other Arab Ambassador here.

That’s true.

You once told me that you talked to Jared Kushner, the Trump
adviser Jason Greenblatt, and others every two or three days

Depends.

When was the last time you talked to them?

The day before the sixth of December.

So the Administration has not reached out to you recently?

I am here, and my phone is open, and I’m available as an Ambassador that
represents the bilateral relationship. Some government representatives
have been in touch.

From the White House?

No.

From the State Department?

Yes. We care about keeping the relationship between America and
Palestine. We have invested so much in this relationship. America has
invested billions of dollars, and we appreciate that bilateral
relationship, which has been going from strong to stronger over the
decades. It has reached, really, to a level whereby at all
levels—political, institutional, security—the relationship is one of the
best in the region. We want to make sure that that very important
strategic bilateral relationship not only remains but is actually
strengthened.

In the absence of a peace process, how concerned are you about a third
intifada, or uprising?

If you asked in 1987, “Would an intifada erupt?,” most people would tell
you, “No.” Or in 2000, for that matter. Intifadas are, by definition,
spontaneous.

In December, a Palestinian poll said forty-five percent of
respondents supported the idea of a third armed intifada.

What is between the people and the Israelis, the occupation, is us—the
Palestinian Authority. That is what is keeping the situation
semi-stable. We know that, that’s why [Abbas] said on Sunday that we
cannot just keep burying our heads under the sand. Israel is not—the
current Israel, the government—is not interested in a two-state
solution. It is obvious. And they are interested in annexation. Or
apartheid. They are the same thing.

Despite all of the statements criticizing the current Israeli
government and Trump’s decision, the Palestinians have not cut off
security coöperation as far as anyone has announced.

There is stuff that we can talk about, and there is stuff that we don’t
want to talk about. Our commitment to the security is clear—not by words
but by deeds. And this is not because we are in love with the occupier
but because we think, no matter what is the political disagreement
between us, we have to keep some sort of a level of sanity in our
interaction with each other. We need to avoid the curse of blood at any
cost. And you know our future is so bloody boringly interlinked between
us and the Israelis, that we don’t want to go to the all-out
confrontations.