In an interview with FRANCE 24, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said that African countries have said "loud and clear" that Israel won’t be an observer state at the African Union. He added that Arab-Israeli normalization is “a violation of Arab League decisions and resolutions”, and said that US President Joe Biden's administration and the international community need to advocate for a two-state solution to the conflict between the Palestinian Territories and Israel.
"Now that somebody has proposed Israel to be an observer, we have heard so many rejections to this idea and the majority of the African countries don’t actually support that. I think that Israel needs to do a lot of work to come to trust of the international community, which has not been materialized yet. And therefore, the African countries have made their voice loud and clear that, under these circumstances, (there is) no way that Israel will be an observer state at the African Union," Shtayyeh told FRANCE 24 in an interview during the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on February 5, 2022.
"Israel does not want one state. All that Israel wants is to maintain the status quo. We all know that the status quo is unsustainable. You cannot sustain it because it is a deteriorating reality, so therefore, we are hoping that the Quartet will hold a meeting very soon, call upon Israel to stop these sorts of measures that are destroying a two-state solution and then come up with a totally different scenario. Otherwise, we and the Israelis are slipping into a one-state reality, in which by all means – we are here in Africa – Israel will be an apartheid state,” Shtayyeh said.
