Trump redraws the map in Middle East peace plan
Donald Trump shakes hands with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, after presenting a proposal to solve the Israeli-palestinian conflict that would involve giving the Palestinians their own state, but only by redrawing the region’s borders to vastly benefit Israel and give it control of Jerusalem. The president called it a ‘win-win’
DONALD TRUMP yesterday laid out his plan to expand Israel’s territory vastly by giving it permanent control of Jerusalem and much of the occupied West Bank.
The proposal he presented alongside Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, offers Palestinians the possibility of statehood only on fragments of the land they hoped for.
It shatters decades of international consensus over how to resolve the Israeli-palestinian conflict and would radically redraw the region’s borders in favour of Israel.
Mr Netanyahu warmly welcomed the plan, calling it “a historic opportunity” and saying he was prepared to negotiate on the basis of it, but the Palestinian factions united in denouncing it and vowed they would never submit to its terms.
“Today, Israel takes a big step towards peace,” Mr Trump said. “My vision presents a win-win opportunity for both sides, a realistic two-state solution that resolves the risk of Palestinian statehood to Israel’s security.”
Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, welcomed the plan as “a serious proposal” and urged the Palestinians not to reject it out of hand. The US president said that Boris Johnson called him yesterday to offer support.
Under the plan, the US would recognise Israel’s sovereignty over all of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which Britain and most of the international community consider to be illegal under international law.
Israel would also annex the Jordan Valley, the strategic land west of the River Jordan, which constitutes nearly a third of the West Bank. The annexation could begin as early as this weekend, Mr Netanyahu’s spokesman said.
Those two concessions would leave the Palestinians with only patches of territory in the West Bank, connected by motorways, on which they could build their state. Those patches would be connected to Gaza by a tunnel.
The plan gives Israel full sovereignty over Jerusalem, its Old City and holy sites, including the al-aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. The Palestinians would be given several neighbourhoods in the east of the city beyond the Israeli-built security wall.
Mr Trump said the Palestinians would be welcome to establish a capital there and the US would “proudly” open an embassy to Palestine, but the offer falls well short of Palestinian demands for Jerusalem to be divided between an Israeli West and a Palestinian East.
Under the plan, the Palestinians would only receive statehood if they met a series of conditions which Palestinian leaders have already said are unacceptable to them. They include accepting that Israel’s military could operate inside a Palestinian state and that Hamas, the Islamist militant group which controls Gaza, must disarm.
It also includes acknowledging Israel as a Jewish state, something Palestinian leaders have been reluctant to do because they say it would condemn Israel’s two million Arab citizens to second-class status.
The timing of the plan’s release, five weeks before Israel’s March 2 election, is widely seen as a political boon for Mr Netanyahu. Just hours before the event, he became the first serving prime minister in Israeli history to be charged with a crime as part of a longrunning corruption case. It also comes amid Mr Trump’s impeachment trial.
Mr Netanyahu insists he has done nothing wrong and is refusing to resign but polls show him currently trailing behind Benny Gantz, his centrist rival.
“Because your peace plan strikes the right balance where other plans had failed, I’ve agreed to negotiate peace… on the basis of your peace plan,” Mr Netanyahu told Mr Trump.
The US president said he wrote to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, giving him four years to accept the proposal. “It is only reasonable that I have to do a lot for the Palestinians or it just wouldn’t be fair,” Mr Trump said.
Mr Abbas appeared on television to announce his rejection of the plan minutes after it was released. “I am ready to die for the sake of my people,” he said.
His Fatah party held a rare meeting with its Hamas rivals to coordinate opposition to the plan. Palestinians have called for a “Day of Rage” today, and Israel deployed extra troops to the Jordan Valley in case of possible violence.
Arab ambassadors from several states, including the UAE, Bahrain, and Oman, attended the White House ceremony in what was seen as a sign of tacit support for Mr Trump’s proposal. But major states including Saudi Arabia and Egypt stayed away.
Donald Trump is nothing if not ambitious. He finally outlined a plan yesterday to settle the historic dispute between Israel and Palestine, the latest in a long line of American presidents to venture into this particular quagmire.
Some may be suspicious of the plan’s timing, seeing it as designed to distract attention from the impeachment proceedings in the Senate. Alongside the president in the White House was Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, whose own prosecution on bribery charges is also under way.
Mr Netanyahu was delighted with the proposals and has agreed to negotiate with the Palestinians on the basis of the plan for a two-state solution. Jerusalem would remain under Israeli sovereignty; land west of the Jordan River would be Israel’s settled eastern border; Gaza would be demilitarised; and the Arabs required to recognise Israel as a Jewish state.
Mr Netanyahu said President Trump was by a long way Israel’s greatest friend in the White House and this was the best opportunity of recent times to “seize history”. But the Palestinians have long made their opposition clear, not least to enshrining Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
This is a two-state solution but one that accepts the status quo for Israel, including the settlements, the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem. The Palestinians, however, would get double the land they have now and Mr Trump is promising a $50 billion boost to economic development, aiming his rhetoric directly at the young people who seek prosperity rather than never-ending conflict.
Inevitably, the Palestinians’ immediate response was hostile. But they should at least sit down to talks and give peace a chance.