Palestinian Official Claims Daesh is US Plot to Destroy Arab Region

Abbas Zaki, a leading member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Fatah party, told an Iraqi newspaper that the terrorist group was created by the US.

Abbas Zaki, a leading Palestinian politician, has repeated his accusation that the US created Daesh (ISIL/ISIS) as part of a plot to destroy Arab states.

"The American plot began by targeting the heart of the Arab nation, by destroying Iraq and Syria, and weakening Egypt," Zaki told Iraq's Al-Mashriq newspaper last week. 

He described US policy in the region as "the dismantling of Arab societies by taking advantage of the sectarian factor (which) is part of the infernal plot to dismantle the Arab nation (Ummah), split it, and kill its spirit of solidarity."

Zaki is a member of the Central Committee of the Fatah political party, the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). His interview was translated into English by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), an Israeli research institute.

Zaki also included Israel in his account of the plan. According to him, Daesh was created by the US in order to provide an Islamic state that would "justify the existence of a Jewish state, in which there is no place for Palestinians."

Zaki made a similar accusation in an interview on Syria TV in June last year, when he described US policy in the region as "destructive anarchy," and said that "they (the US) created IS, but cannot control it."

He has also previously caused controversy by making inflammatory statements about Israel. According to Times of Israel, in 2014 Zaki told Palestinian TV that Israelis are "an advanced instrument of evil."

On Wednesday PLO representative Salah Abu Khatla told Sputnik Arabic that Zaki's comments were a result of his experiences of political negotiations with colleagues from the US, and should be seen in that context.

"Mr Zaki’s statements came at the right time and place. This is all due to American bias in the negotiations, starting from negotiations about Palestine, then manipulating in negotiations at Camp David, until the legislative elections in 2006 in which Hamas won the majority."

"Because of that, this is not odd at all. It is the American policy, with Obama as President, to be biased towards the right-wing government (of Israel) with regards to the Palestinian cause, a central cause of manipulation in Palestine as well as in the region," Khatla claimed.

Khatla also said that the migration crisis being experienced in Europe is a consequence of mistaken US foreign policy, which European countries have themselves followed.

"All in all, the policy of the European countries is the policy of supporting the policy of the United States."

"In addition to this, their (European countries') policy follows their own interests in this instable region, and then Daesh rises and spreads to (commits attacks in) Europe. Therefore, a reconsideration of their politics is needed."