Palestine denies discussing US peace plan and rejects Trump’s pro-Israel bias
▶ Washington waits on Israeli election results before rolling out its long-awaited plan
A senior Palestinian official dismissed reports that a former Israeli minister met a Palestinian delegation to discuss details of US President Donald Trump’s long-awaited peace plan.
Yesterday, Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat reported Palestinian officials as saying that specifics of the American peace plan were shared with former Israeli defence minister Avigdor Lieberman before his resignation in November.
The plan reportedly allocates Gaza as the Palestinian state and makes concessions to give limited autonomy to Palestinians without land to live in small designated areas of the West Bank.
The London-based newspaper reported Mr Lieberman meeting unnamed Palestinian officials weeks before his resignation to convey details of the US plan.
But a Palestinian official told The National that the Palestinian Liberation Organisation had already disqualified Washington’s peace plan under Mr Trump’s increasingly hostile policies supporting the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
As part of the plan reported by Al Hayat, Palestinians will be allowed to live in small, designated areas of the West Bank. It allocates the entirety of Area A in the West Bank – currently under Palestinian Authority control – and small parts of Area B and Area C, the latter being the area under Israel civil and security control.
According to the newspaper, Mr Lieberman told the Palestinian officials that Israeli authorities will be responsible for security within and retain control of border checkpoints surrounding the West Bank.
Mr Trump’s plan intends to legitimise the illegal occupation of East Jerusalem, the proposed capital of Palestine, and allegedly aims to provide large economic incentives provided by the international community to rebuild the besieged Gaza Strip’s ailing infrastructure – including promises of an airport and a seaport.
Washington said it is waiting to factor in the results from the Israeli elections on April 9 before rolling out the plan. Mr Trump’s administration refers to the proposed peace plan as “the deal of the century”.
Naftali Bennett, the far-right Israeli education minister planning to challenge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the coming elections, said the peace plan would include a Palestinian state, a prospect he has opposed.
Mr Bennett has in the past called for a much tougher response to Palestinian border protests and rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. He is also an outspoken opponent of Palestinian independence.
The Trump administration’s plan is expected to be presented in coming months, but early signs from the Palestinians show opposition to many if not all the stipulations in the plan.
“The PLO has nothing to do with negotiations. And we’re not waiting for anything. We have already said that the US has disqualified itself from playing any role,” a Palestinian official told The National.
Settlements in the West Bank have grown under the current US administration, which has grown increasingly hostile to Palestine.
With little resistance from the White House, last week an Israeli committee advanced plans for thousands more settlement homes on war-won Palestinian land. The move has only deepened Palestinian mistrust of the Trump administration as it prepares to roll out the peace plan.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has boycotted the Trump administration since it recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in December 2017.