Israel unifies over ‘deal of century’
Trump’s peace plan brings Netanyahu, rival together, writes Eli Lake
Few things can bring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Benny Gantz together, but President Donald Trump’s long-awaited peace plan has.
Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gantz, whose parties will face one another for the third time in a year in March, will be arriving in Washington next week, where the president is expected to brief them on what he calls “the ultimate deal”.
Israeli leaders have historically chafed at US plans to impose peace terms, preferring instead for the US to broker peace negotiations. Mr Trump’s plan is different. In Israel, it is already being called “the deal of the century”.
While the White House has not released any details, administration officials say a preview of some of the plan’s parameters can be found in a March 2019 speech delivered by US ambassador David Friedman.
In the speech, Mr Friedman argues that putting off the peace process risks leaving the deal-making to a future US administration — one that may not be as friendly to Israel. “Can we leave this to an administration that may not understand the need for Israel to maintain overriding security control of Judea and Samaria and a permanent defence position in the Jordan valley?” he asked, using the biblical names of the territory that comprise the West Bank. It was not a throwaway line.
Both Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gantz have said they would begin annexation of key areas of the Jordan River valley, though Mr Gantz has said he would do this in conjunction with the international community. Needless to say, this has been a red line for the Palestinian Authority.
Mr Friedman also raised the issue of Jerusalem (not surprising, since he was behind moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem). “I think that even three millennia ago, King David recognised that Israel’s enemies would seek to undermine the centrality of Jerusalem to the state of Israel and to mischaracterise and vilify the Jewish state,” he said.
Here, administration officials say, Mr Friedman is reinforcing another element of the peace plan: that East and West Jerusalem will remain under Israeli sovereignty. Prior peace negotiations have put off the final status of Jerusalem. Palestinians claim the city, known in Arabic as al-Quds, as their capital.
In the final weeks of the presidency of Barack Obama, the US abstained from a UN Security Council vote that declared Israel’s presence in East Jerusalem was occupied territory. Israel unified the city after the Six Day War in 1967.
Other Washington sources who have been briefed on the plan say the Palestinians will have to recognise Israel as a Jewish state as a condition for accepting the territory carved out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip that would make up their future state.
This was a key demand from Mr Netanyahu during the Obama administration, but unlike Mr Trump, Mr Obama did not endorse this position during negotiations.
So Mr Trump’s vision for a twostate solution will almost certainly be rejected by the Palestinians.
Ten years ago, such open rejection would have been a diplomatic disaster and if a US president had offered the Trump plan in 2010, he would have jeopardised that cooperation.
Now the world is a different place. Nations like Saudi Arabia and Egypt no longer view counter-terrorism or opposition to Iran as a favour to the US. It is a matter of national survival.