(TPS) The official Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership assailed Israel for its democratic elections, charging that Israel “voted no to peace and yes to apartheid.”

“Regrettably, Israelis overwhelmingly voted for candidates that are unequivocally committed to entrenching the status quo of oppression, occupation, annexation and dispossession in Palestine and escalating the assault on Palestinian national and human rights,” PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi stated. “They have chosen an overwhelmingly rightwing, xenophobic and anti-Palestinian parliament to represent them. Israelis chose to entrench and expand apartheid.”

Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the PLO’s Executive Committee, said, “Israelis have voted to preserve the status quo. They have said no to peace and yes to the occupation.”

Tawfik Tirawi, former head of the PA’s intelligence apparatus and a Fatah member, said that no government in Israel will lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state, and that the discourse in Israel is between various forms of right-wing politics.

Therefore, he warned, the PA has no chance in realizing even its most basic aspirations and should rethink its strategy. He suggested a stratagem that is based on land grabs that create facts on the ground, and said that the PA must abandon the notion that only negotiations can achieve a change. The PA must not negotiate out of a position of weakness, he said.

The PA has not negotiated with Israel for years, while it has already engaged in the European Union-backed program of land grabs in the Judea and Samaria region.