Palestinians offer an alternative land plan

The Palestinians have proposed a demilitarised Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem with one-to-one land exchanges with Israel as a counteroffer to President Donald Trump’s Mideast plan.

Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh declined to provide further details about the 41⁄ 2- page proposal but said the plan was submitted in recent days to Mideast mediators — the US, the UN, the European Union and Russia.

The Trump administration has chastised the Palestinians for rejecting its plan, which sides with Israel on all the most contentious issues in the decades-old conflict. Israel and the US have long accused the Palestinians of failing to provide their own proposal. The Palestinians say their demands are rooted in international law and UN resolutions.

The two sides have not held substantive peace negotiations in more than a decade.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to annex large parts of the occupied West Bank in line with the Trump plan, which would give the Palestinians limited statehood in a cluster of disjointed enclaves if they meet a long list of conditions. Israel is expected to begin the annexation process as soon as July 1.

The Palestinians have responded by cutting all ties with Israel, and seeking to rally international support against annexation, hoping to pressure Netanyahu to back down.

Key Arab nations, including Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, have condemned the annexation plan. The EU has also warned that annexation could have negative consequences and urged both sides to resume dialogue.

Shtayyeh told reporters that annexation is an “existential threat” that would mark the “total erosion of our national aspirations”. The Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories Israel seized in the 1967 war.

Shtayyeh said it would be a “demilitarised state” and that the Palestinians would accept “minor border modification” and the exchange of territory equivalent “in size, in volume and in value”.

He said the Palestinian leadership would not give in to Israeli demands that they resume contacts to facilitate the monthly transfer of $150 million in taxes and customs that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians. That’s a crucial source of income for the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank.

Shtayyeh said if the transfers do not go through, the PA will be unable to pay the salaries of tens of thousands of civil servants and security forces starting this month.

“Our people are ready for sacrifices,” Shtayyeh said.

“We are not ready to accept any blackmail. The issue here is not money for politics.”

He said the PA would continue to “support our people in Gaza in every single way possible”.

Gaza has been under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.