http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/03/middleeast/palestinians-aid-trump-israel-intl/index.html
On Wednesday, President Trump threatened to cut the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid to Palestine. Palestinian General Secretary Saeb Erekat responded by stating, “You are moving from negotiating to dictating and then you are threatening us if we don’t accept your dictations — that you are going to cut aid.” Though it is easy to see why the Palestinian government may be offended by Trumps actions, it is important to realize that Trump has some reason behind them. The United States, a country that has supported Israeli-Palestinian peace negations, but not full recognition of Palestine as a country, has paid $616 million dollars last year and to aid in humanitarian assistance, sector debt payments, and infrastructure development payments. The United States is going out of of there way to provide aid to a country which is in complete opposite to one of their closest “allies”, Israel. The United States also provides the most financial aid to Palestine compared to any other country, ahead of not Iran or Saudi Arabia, but Canada and Japan. Still, General Secretary Erekat has stated his continued support of the two-state solution, but blames Trump, and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. But since Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Palestinians have cut off, however temporary, peace negotiation with Israel. This, along with the fact that leader of the Palestinian National Initiative Party, has renounced U.S. aid, and slammed ideas of Israeli peace talks. Because it is clear that Palestine doesn’t even have unified leadership in these recurring problems, it is unclear whether peace talks will ever be a viable solution to all of the recurring problems surrounding Palestinian diplomatic relations.