Trump’s Middle East peace plan

Written By: - Date published: 10:47 am, January 29th, 2020 - 21 comments
Categories: Donald Trump, israel, Palestine, politicans, uncategorized, war - Tags:

This news shows how strange International Relations has become.  Donald Trump, currently on trial in the Senate for withholding approved funds from the Ukraine in an attempt to get the Ukranian authorities to dig up dirt on his possible opponent Joe Biden, and Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been indicted on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, have announced the bigliest most bestest peace plan for the Middle East ever.

It is that great they did not even talk to the Palestinian leadership before releasing it.  Obviously they thought its sheer quality will make it irresistible to the Palestinian people.

So what does the plan propose?  The Guardian has some of the details:

In a series of sometimes contradictory statements, Trump said the plan would:

  • Establish Jerusalem as Israel’s “undivided” capital, but with a potential Palestinian capital in eastern sections of the city.

  • Recognise Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory as part of the country.

  • Offer the future possibility for a Palestinian statehood that would “more that double Palestinian territory”, without specifying what territory he was referring to.

  • Lead to “1m” new jobs for Palestinians and triple its GDP.

In his comments, Netanyahu went further, saying Trump’s plan recognised Israeli sovereignty over other large areas of Palestinian territory and would seek to fully disarm the militant group Hamas.

“It’s a great plan for Israel, it’s a great plan for peace,” he said. Critically, Netanyahu said the “status quo” of Israeli control over the Palestinian territories would remain in place until a deal was reach, which he anticipated would take years.

He added to Trump: “You have been the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House.”

The plan comes with this map.  A cursory look at it shows significant addition of land adjacent to the Egyptian border to Palestinian land.

But the area is all desert.

The conditions are all important.  The partition of Jerusalem has always been a deal breaker.  Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem was the biggest middle finger to the Palestinians that Trump could have given.  And allowing Israel to continue to control Jerusalem will mean that Palestine will never agree with what is being proposed.

The map is also disingenuous.  Recognising illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land makes the map more or less useless.  There are a number of Israeli enclave communities in the West Bank area which will remain.

The new jobs and triple the GDP rhetoric is typical of Trump.  He probably thinks it can be achieved by giving a tax break.

We have had the rhetoric of a two state solution for a while.  But the situation that was not acceptable in 2000 has worsened.  Expecting Palestine to agree to continuous illegal land occupation over the past two decades that have since passed will not work.

Palestinian commentators have rubbished the proposal.  From the Guardian:

Khaled Elgindy, a former peace negotiator and adviser to the Palestinian leadership in the 2000s, said the intent was not to end conflict but to legitimise Israel’s occupation.

“It’s a plan that has nothing to do with peace. It’s not about two states,” he said. “It’s about completely changing the terms of an Israeli-Palestinian settlement to move away from ending the occupation, to move away from two sovereign states. It’s consecrating the status quo. It’s really about normalising Israeli occupation on a permanent basis.”

Elgindy compared the Palestinian state envisaged in the plan to the nominally independent black homelands of apartheid South Africa, known as bantustans, but said it has been years in the making.

“It’s too easy to say Trump killed the peace process and the two-state solution. It was pretty much dead when he got here. He’s just now trying to bury it,” he said.

And the Palestinian Prime Minister has similarly rubbished the proposal:

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh on Monday urged international powers to boycott US President Donald Trump´s “peace plan” which they see as biased towards Israel.

“This a plan to protect Trump from impeachment and protect (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu from prison. It is not a Middle East peace plan,” Shtayyeh told a cabinet meeting. “This plan gives Israel sovereignty over Palestinian territory,” he said.

 

21 comments on “Trump’s Middle East peace plan ”

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  1. Peter 1
    29 January 2020 at 11:59 am

    Check this honourable guy out. It is not a parody, this is real.

    I like the USA saying it's getting out of the Middle East. I like them saying they're going to get on and do their own thing and let others do their thing. I love how this guy says his background is in real estate and it was very difficult to draw the lines on the map.

    This is not a parody. If my daughter came home and told me I was to be the father-in-law of this man I would know I had failed as a parent.

  2. Andre 2
    29 January 2020 at 12:06 pm

    The last paragraph of the OP explains it all. It's all about having a shiny distraction to wave around in the coming elections. As explained in more detail here:

    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/01/28/the-real-goal-of-trumps-middle-east-plan-108125

    • Macro 3.1
      29 January 2020 at 1:29 pm

      Thread of the above tweet from Senator Chris Murphy:

      1/ This plan was negotiated with no one but the Israelis, and thus it's not a peace plan at all. Peace can only be achieved through agreement between Israel and the Palestinian people. By setting these new terms, it makes it harder for Israel to compromise later.

      2/ Any claim that this plan envisions a Palestinian state is just false. The plan allows Israel to control all security matters inside the Palestinian "state", and thus it's not a state at all.

      3/ The unilateral annexation of the Jordan River valley and existing settlements, deemed illegal under U.S. and international law, will set back the peace process decades. And it risks real violence and massive destabilization inside places like Jordan.

      4/ I remain a devoted supporter of Israel and our commitment to their security and defense. But this proposal compromises the long term security of both Israel and the United States. That's why I oppose it.

  4. Gosman 4
    29 January 2020 at 1:31 pm

    A couple of points.

    ALL Israeli settlements on land outside the 1947 UN Partition plan are technically illegal based on the same principles you are applying to those on the West Bank. Are you expecting these to be given up as well.

    The Palestinian's have the choice. They can choose to accept the plan and accept much less than they want or they can reject the plan and risk the status quo staying in place for the forseeable future. They have already rejected one plan back in the late 1990's that pretty much guaranteed them a slice of East Jerusalem for their Capital and the potential for a Palestinian state on virtually all of the lands deemed Occupied post 1967. They have to ask themselves if rejecting another plan will pay off for them or not. It certainly didn't the last time.

    • McFlock 4.1
      29 January 2020 at 1:39 pm

      Way to gloss over Oslo. It wasn't the Palestinians who fucked that one up.

      • Gosman 4.1.1
        29 January 2020 at 1:58 pm

        It wasn't Oslo I was talking about but the 2000 Camp David Summit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Camp_David_Summit).

        • McFlock 4.1.1.1
          29 January 2020 at 2:26 pm

          reading further down:

          Clinton's initiative led to the Taba negotiations in January 2001, where the two sides published a statement saying they had never been closer to agreement (though such issues as Jerusalem, the status of Gaza, and the Palestinian demand for compensation for refugees and their descendants remained unresolved), but Barak, facing elections, re-suspended the talks.[27] Ehud Barak was to be defeated by Ariel Sharon in 2001.

          So who walked away?

          • Gosman 4.1.1.1.1
            29 January 2020 at 2:38 pm

            In the Camp David talks it was the Palestinians.

            The issue is the longer the time it takes for the Palestinian side to agree to anything the worse their negotiating position becomes. This might be “unfair” for them but it is the reality of the situation.

            • McFlock 4.1.1.1.1.1
              29 January 2020 at 3:02 pm

              Unfair is your word.

              Blaming extortion victims for not giving up easily enough is a move most used by people who have no problem with extortionists.

  5. Dennis Frank 5
    29 January 2020 at 1:40 pm

    Trump's narcissism is getting the better of him. Some christian cult leader will have to call him up & lecture him awhile. Obviously it is God's peace plan, and Trump is merely serving as his agent.

    I suspect God will have to sit down with Allah & come to consensus before the Palestinians get on board with the scheme. The problem is basically that the promised land wasn't mapped when Joshua & the Israelites invaded & conquered it, or if it was no such map has survived, so the question of which bits belong has to be haggled over…

  6. McFlock 6
    29 January 2020 at 1:48 pm

    That tunnel is what, 40km long?

    Mexico ain't gonna pay for that, either.

    Fucking vaporware.

  7. joe90 7
    29 January 2020 at 5:28 pm

    That Gaza extension looks like it was dreamed up by GOP gerrymanders.

    And Jordan says FTS.

    https://twitter.com/RichardEngel/status/1222233264854835201

      • Macro 7.1.1
        29 January 2020 at 9:40 pm

        No doubt the colour scheme for the penthouse suite is filed in the bottom drawer of the Resolute desk.

      • Andre 7.2.1
        29 January 2020 at 5:44 pm

        S'pose it's a case of grab while the grabbin's good. I'm a little surprised they didn't just go for the whole West Bank, but there's a few plays left for the long game.

        • joe90 7.2.1.1
          29 January 2020 at 5:56 pm

          Looks like they've gone for a Palestinian state in name only, occupied and subjected to brutal Israeli military rule, with no meaningful autonomy or rights.

          https://twitter.com/Ibishblog/status/1222246913917038592

          3) Palestinians must recognize Israel as a "Jewish state" without any definition of what that means legally or practically
          4) Israel will annex all settlements, the Jordan Valley and other areas in perpetuity, Palestinians there not entitled to Israeli citizenship nonetheless

          5) Israel will have extraterritorial jurisdiction over all Jewish Israelis in the "Palestinian state" who will remain citizens of Israel and subject only to Israeli jurisdiction in all things, including zoning and planning.

          6) It's not clear, but it looks like Palestinians in the small triangle of land transferred by Israel will probably lose their Israeli citizenship as well

          7) the Palestinian "state" will be demilitarized, and unable to enter into agreements with other states or join multilateral institutions without Israeli permission
          8) Israel can even veto the entry of Palestinian refugees into the Palestinian state

          9) Palestinian refugee status will cease to exist and UNRWA will be disbanded
          10) Palestinians can only have this limited, compromised autonomy if they meet a series of complex hurdles to the satisfaction of Israel

          11) The Palestinian state mainly exists to enforce counterterrorism
          Those are the main points that jumped out at me on first scan. I recommend Appendix 2C as particularly ludicrous and insulting to the intelligence.

          This proposal gives the most extreme Israelis – except those who want to completely annex all of the occupied territories rather than just maintain de facto control over them – everything they could have ever wanted. It gives the Palestinians virtually nothing of political value.

          https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1222246913917038592.html

          • soddenleaf 7.2.1.1.1
            30 January 2020 at 4:12 pm

            Gives extreme Israelis… ..removal of the mosque atop the Jewish most sacred place….

            Moderate Jews don't get to win the next war, under the plan.

            The only winners in the current and proposed stalemate are fundamental Christians who get special treatment to the holy land. as per usual for the crusaders. That's why the west invaded.

            The solution is simple. The current war, yes it's a slow war, needs to be conceeded, to admit it, and give up unconditionally.

            Religious Jews want the mount back.

            Secular Jews want to know that when the Muslim are in the ascendancy again they won't all be slaughtered. So want a mechanism that means nobody dies when the Muslim rebuild the mosque ontop of the mount. This is done by cantons and the military ascendancy getting the binding vote in the parliament. 51 49 to the Jews no matter the pop.

            Then up charges to tourists, money that would have paid Christian fundamentalist politicians in the US, now fund building for all Israelis Muslim too.

            All it needs is the Palestinians to recognize they failed to protect themselves and have lost.

            This is not necessarily my view, just my opinion of the one state solution. Cantons win the next change of power.

            • joe90 7.2.1.1.1.1
              30 January 2020 at 5:37 pm

              Fundie don't give a rats about Israel or Jews.What they do care about is their need for Jews to convert/be perfected to fulfill their biblically inspired end times body count fantasy so they can get themselves all raptured TF.