In a speech Sunday during a visit to the Italian southern port city of Bari to reflect on peace in countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, Pope Francis lamented the many areas of war and conflict, including in the Middle East and Northern Africa, AP reported.

Pope Francis spoke of “the still unresolved conflict between Israel and Palestine, with the danger of not fair solutions, and, thus, presaging new crises.”

On January 28, Trump unveiled his so-called deal of the century, negotiated with Israel but without the Palestinians.

The new US peace plan would let Israel annex all of its settlements along with the strategic Jordan Valley. It would give the Palestinians limited autonomy in several chunks of territory with a capital on the outskirts of Al-Quds, but only if they meet stringent conditions.

Palestinian leaders, who severed all ties with Washington in late 2017 after Trump controversially recognized Al-Quds as the capital of the Israeli regime, immediately rejected the plan, with President Mahmoud Abbas saying it “belongs to the dustbin of history,” according to Press TV.

On February 11, Abbas told the UN Security Council that the US plan is in breach of United Nations resolutions and Palestinian sovereignty.

“I would like to say to Mr. Donald Trump that his plan cannot achieve peace and security as it cancels international legitimacy,” Abbas said.

Stressing that the plan would legitimize Israel’s illegal settlements and the annexation of occupied Palestinian land, Abbas said, “If you impose peace, it will not last, it cannot last. What gives you the right to annex these lands?”

The Palestinian president also called on the international community not to consider the plan as an international reference for negotiations, saying, “It is an Israeli-American preemptive plan in order to put an end to the question of Palestine.”

Palestinian leaders say the deal is a colonial plan to unilaterally control historic Palestine in its entirety and remove Palestinians from their homeland. They say it heavily favors Israel and would deny them a viable independent state.

Zarif made the remarks in an interview with khamenei.ir, the official website of Leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

He stressed that the Palestine dispute cannot be resolved through a scheme that seeks to violate Palestinian rights and expand unlawful settlements on occupied territory, Press TV wrote.

“As for Palestine, instead of giving in to the humiliation and the increasing and infinite pressures exerted by the US and the Zionist regime, there are two solutions that should be pursued simultaneously, not separate from one another. One is resistance and another is democracy and popular vote. If they put these two solutions in practice, the question of Palestine will be resolved,” he said.

Last year, the Islamic Republic submitted to the United Nations its proposal for the holding of a referendum on the issue of Palestine issue, as put forth by Ayatollah Khamenei, he noted.

“The solution for the issue of Palestine turns around the two pivots of democracy and resistance. The purpose of resistance is clear and the Palestinians are in fact resisting, but today all Palestinians should express their unanimous opposition to the “deal of the century.” The unity inside Palestine on the basis of resistance can help foil Zionist policies,” he said.

Zarif highlighted the role of democracy as another game changer in the issue of Palestine, saying the proponents of a fake democracy who consider the Zionist regime to be “the only democracy in the region” need to be prepared to embrace true democracy.

“What does true democracy mean? It means that all those who live in Palestine, who are the real owners of Palestine, but who have been displaced around the world should be able to determine and make decisions for their own future,” he pointed out.

US President Donald Trump released his self-proclaimed “deal of the century” during an event at the White House alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on January 28.

The so-called “Vision for Peace” bars Palestinian refugees from returning to their homeland, regards Al-Quds as “Israel’s undivided capital” and allows the regime to annex West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley.

Zarif described the US plan as the continuation of Washington’s interventionist policies regarding the question of occupied Palestine.

“One of the mistakes made in the past 30 years was that they [some Palestinian organizations] thought they would be able to revive the rights of the Palestinians through cooperating with the occupiers,” he said, adding that all Palestinian parties have realized the fallacy of this notion.

“We have always stressed that it is the Palestinians who have the right to choose and the Islamic Republic will accept whichever path the people of Palestine opt for. In other words, we accept that the Palestinians should make the final decision and their final decision should be respected by everyone.”

The top diplomat further emphasized that even the former Pahlavi regime had proposed a democratic solution for the Palestine issue and rejected the 1947 UN Palestine Partition Plan.

He also complained about the “passivity and degradation” of the Arabs in the face of the Americans and the Zionists.

In recent years, the Arab world has not only adopted “a passive outlook” toward Tel Aviv and Washington but also allied with the pair against Palestine, Zarif said, noting that such an approach has led the Americans to the conclusion that they can unveil their plan for the Middle East.

Zarif pointed out that the Arab world has stooped to such a level of disgrace that the Americans think they can portray such a despicable plan as a means of upholding the rights of Palestinian people, whereas “on the basis of what Trump and [his son-in-law and adviser Jared] Kushner think and say, they are not at all concerned about anyone’s rights and they view this plan as a [real estate] project.”

“The Arab world is still insisting to purchase security from the US and the Zionist regime… instead of relying on themselves, their people and their Muslim neighbors. As for the Americans, they obviously welcome it due to the fact that they sell weapons to Saudi Arabia worth 67 billion dollars, and at the same time they purchase the dignity of Saudi Arabia.”

Zarif exclaimed that the Arab leaders do not even dare voice their opposition or adopt a position in support of Palestine, and they even go as far as thanking Trump for his skewed proposal.

The Palestinians need to realize that they cannot achieve their goal by giving in to US interventionism, he pointed out.

The OIC convened in Jeddah on Monday to discuss the Palestine plan Trump unveiled alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, presstv.com reported.

The 57-member organization said it “calls on all member states not to engage with this plan or to cooperate with the US administration in implementing it in any form”.

The deal would, among other contentious things, enshrine Jerusalem al-Quds as “Israel’s undivided capital” and allow the regime to annex settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Jordan Valley.

All Palestinian groups have angrily rejected the plan, while Israeli groups of different political persuasions have enthusiastically embraced it, hailing it for offering them more than they expected.

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday cut relations with the US and Israel after saying he did not want his name to go down in history for betraying the Palestinians.

Riyadh, however, has welcomed the initiative, saying “the Kingdom appreciates the efforts made by President Trump’s administration to develop a comprehensive Palestinian-Israeli peace plan”.

Saudi government media on Sunday urged the Palestinians not to miss “this opportunity” and to approach the deal with a positive mindset.

State-run newspaper Okaz went on as far as to say that “the Palestinian cause is no longer the Arabs’ main cause”.

Saudi Arabia meanwhile barred an Iranian delegation from the OIC meeting in Jeddah, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said.

Iran, he said, has filed a complaint with the OIC and chastised Saudi Arabia for misusing its position as the host for the organization’s headquarters.

Iranian officials have condemned Trump’s plan as a non-starter after it was officially announced last week. The Palestinian leadership has rejected the plan, saying it heavily favors Israel and will deny them a viable independent state.