Mideast plan
Proposal calls for ‘demilitarized Palestinian state’
White House unveils longawaited peace proposal that’s immediately seen as favoring Israel.
President Donald Trump unveiled his long-awaited Middle East peace plan with a flourish Tuesday, outlining a proposal that would give Israel most of what it has sought over decades of conflict while creating what he called a Palestinian state with limited sovereignty.
Trump’s plan would guarantee that Israel would control a unified Jerusalem as its capital and not require it to uproot any of the settlements in the West Bank that have provoked Palestinian outrage and alienated much of the outside world. He promised to provide $50 billion in international investment to build the new Palestinian entity and open an embassy in its new state.
“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,” the president said at a White House ceremony that demonstrated the one-sided state of affairs as he was flanked by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel but no counterpart from the Palestinian leadership, which is not on speaking terms with the Trump administration.
Trump insisted his plan would be good for the Palestinians and in his speech reached out to President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, calling on him to join talks to advance the proposal. “President Abbas,” he said, “I want you to know that if you choose the path to peace, America and many other countries, we will be there; we will be there to help you in so many different ways.”
The event in the East Room of the White House had a Kabuki-theater quality to it as the president ended years of suspense over a highly touted peace plan that was widely considered dead on arrival. Rather than a serious blueprint for peace, analysts called it a political document by a president in the middle of an impeachment trial working in tandem with a prime minister under criminal indictment and about to face his third election in the span of a year.
Nearly three years in the making and overseen by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the plan is the latest of numerous U.S. efforts to settle the 70-plus year conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. But it marked a sharp turn in the U.S. approach, dropping decades of U.S. support for only modest adjustments to Israeli borders drawn in a 1967 armistice and discarding the longtime goal of granting the Palestinians a full-fledged state.
The proposal imagines new Israeli borders that cut far into the West Bank, and, at least in the short term, calls for what Netanyahu has described as a Palestinian “state-minus,” lacking an army or air force. The White House called it “a demilitarized Palestinian state” with Israel retaining security responsibility west of the Jordan River, although over time the Palestinians would assume more security responsibility.
Trump said it was the first time that Israel had authorized the release of such a conceptual map illustrating territorial compromises it would make. He said it would “more than double Palestinian territory” while ensuring that “no Palestinians or Israelis will be uprooted from their homes.” The White House said in a fact sheet that Israel had agreed to “a fouryear land freeze” to preserve the viability of a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu welcomed the plan, describing it as ”a realistic path to a durable peace” that “strikes the right balance where others have failed.” Calling Trump the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House, Netanyahu added: “It’s a great plan for Israel. It’s a great plan for peace.”
The new Palestinian state would have a capital, which the proposal called Al-Quds, that would include some of the outer portions of East Jerusalem. The plan would preserve the status quo at the sprawling compound that Jews call the Temple Mount and Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary, or Al-Aqsa, which is the name of one of two main Islamic shrines there. The location is the holiest place in Judaism and the third-holiest place in Islam, and the site of numerous clashes over the years. Muslims would continue to be permitted to visit Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The Trump plan promises a $50 billion economic plan for the new Palestinian state that the White House claimed would create 1 million new jobs over 10 years, double the size of the Palestinian economy, cut poverty in half and reduce unemployment below 10 percent.
By asking the Palestinians to make far more territorial concessions than past proposals, though, Trump’s plan provided an American imprimatur of support to decades of aggressive Israeli settlement building in Palestinian areas seized in two wars between Israel and Arab states. And it sent a grim message to the Palestinians that they have missed their chance to win the “two-state solution” they long pursued — as least so long as Trump is president.