RAMALLAH, 28 February, 2021, (TON): On Saturday Palestine lashed out at the U.S. position towards the Israel-Palestine conflict, calling it a "foggy" position. 

"The U.S. foggy position encourages the Israeli government to escalate its settlement policy," the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said in a statement. 

"The Israeli government exploits the U.S. position to implement what had been already agreed upon between the former U.S. administration and the Israeli government concerning settlement," the statement said, referring to the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim in the West Bank overlooking the E1 area. 

"The current administration is not putting the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the top of its priorities," the PLO statement said. 

It said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week instructed the start of implementing the settlement project in E1 area "to establish a new status quo on the ground." 

"The settlement project in E1 area is part of the actual Israeli annexation plan of large parts of the West Bank and will undermine the vision of the two-state solution," it added. 

For the past twenty years, Israel has endeavored to build racially-discriminatory (Jews only) settlements at E1 area to the east of Abu Dis. The E1 area is an area of the West Bank within the municipal boundary of the Israeli settlement of Ma'ale Adumim. These would join Jerusalem to the illegal settlements built from the 1970s on, and create further difficulties for the Palestinian population by effectively cutting the West Bank in half. 

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Ishtaye last week urged the international community and the United States to intervene to prevent the implementation of the settlement project in E1 area. 

Jewish settlements in the West Bank is one of the thorny issues that caused the stalemate of the peace negotiations, which were sponsored by the United States and stopped in 2014. 

The Jordan Valley is home to approximately 60,000 Palestinians, according to the UN, but nearly 90 percent of the land is part of what is known as Area C, the three-fifths of the West Bank that is under complete Zionist regime occupation.