The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CARTER CRITICIZES MIDEAST PEACE PLAN
Former President Jimmy Carter issued a statement Thursday rejecting President Donald Trump’s newly proposed Middle East peace plan, which calls for the Israeli annexation of key swaths of Palestinian-held land.
What happened
The statement issued Thursday by the Carter Center in Atlanta describes Trump’s offer as “fragmented statehood” that leaves Palestinians “without control of their borders ... and undercuts prospects for a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”
Trump unveiled the longawaited plan Tuesday in Washington alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump’s plan envisions a disjointed Palestinian state that turns over key parts of the West Bank to Israel. It sides with Israel on key contentious issues that have bedeviled past peace efforts, including borders and the status of Jerusalem and Jewish settlements.
Why it matters
The plan attaches nearly impossible conditions for granting the Palestinians their hoped-for state, such as allowing the Palestinians to establish a capital on the outskirts of east Jerusalem but leaving most of the city under Israeli control, the AP reported.
“If implemented, the plan will doom the only viable solution to this long-running conflict, the two-state solution,” Carter said in the statement.
The Palestinians favor a two-state solution based on borders that were in place before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The United Nations has already issued several resolutions declaring all Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal, contrary to Trump’s solution.
Trump’s plan “violates the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, which is codified in a long line of United Nations Security Council resolutions from 242 (1967) to 2334 (2016),” Carter said.
“Further, the proposal breaches international law regarding self-determination, the acquisition of land by force, and annexation of occupied territories,” according to Carter’s statement.
Carter ends the statement by urging the U.N. “to adhere to UN Security Council resolutions and to reject any unilateral Israeli implementation of the proposal by grabbing more Palestinian land.”
What’s next
Netanyahu said he’d ask his Cabinet to approve the annexation plans in their next meeting on Sunday, a move that could trigger harsh international reaction and renewed violence with the Palestinians.