President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel unveiled the Middle East plan at the White House. Photo / Doug Mills, The New York Times
President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel unveiled the Middle East plan at the White House. Photo / Doug Mills, The New York Times
The proposal, three years in the making, favoured Israeli priorities and was conceived without Palestinian input.
President Donald Trump stood alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the White House on Tuesday to reveal a long-awaited plan intended to resolve generations of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
Noticeably absentfrom that announcement, though, was any Palestinian representation, and Palestinian leaders have flatly rejected the plan. The proposed settlement strongly favours Israeli priorities rather than having both sides make significant concessions.
Trump vowed at the start of his presidency that he would negotiate a "bigger and better deal" to broker peace than anyone could imagine. Three years later, experts say that the plan, developed under the supervision of Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, falls remarkably short of that goal and is unlikely ever to become the basis for a peace agreement.
While Trump's proposal is the latest in a series of US-brokered attempts to forge peace between Israelis and Palestinians, his framework was a sharp departure from decades of American policy. The United States has long voiced support for the creation of a Palestinian state with only slight adjustments to the Israeli boundaries that existed before the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, when Israel wrested the West Bank from Jordan, and Gaza from Egypt.
Instead, the 181-page Trump plan proposes a West Bank riddled with interconnected chunks of Israeli territory containing Jewish settlements, many of them largely encircled by Palestinian lands. For the Palestinians, it would mean giving up a claim to large amounts of West Bank land — including places where Israel has built settlements over the past half-century and strategic areas along the Jordanian border. Most of the world regards the settlements as illegal.
The framework also sets aside the longtime goal of a fully autonomous Palestinian state. Instead, Trump vaguely promised that Palestinians could "achieve an independent state of their very own" but gave few details, while Netanyahu said the deal provided a "pathway to a Palestinian state" with significant caveats.
Control of Jerusalem has long been a sticking point in peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. Photo / Mauricio Lima, The New York Times
The Palestinians do not subscribe to the plan, though the deal provides for a four-year window for them to engage in renewed settlement talks. During that time, Israel would refrain from constructing settlements in those parts of the West Bank that the plan has designated for Palestinians.
Previous American proposals spoke of uprooting tens of thousands of Israelis from the settlements to return those areas to the Palestinians for inclusion in their state, but the Trump plan promises to leave both settlers and Palestinians in their current homes. Rather, it maps out a series of linked settlements and other areas that would officially become Israeli territory in the midst of the West Bank.
The plan also envisaged a Palestinian capital in "eastern Jerusalem," on the outer edges of the city beyond Israel's security barrier, while guaranteeing Israeli sovereignty over all of Jerusalem. The city is a holy site for the Jewish, Muslim and Christian faiths and has long been a sticking point in peace negotiations.
Netanyahu later clarified that the proposed Palestinian capital would be in Abu Dis, a Palestinian village on the outskirts of the holy city.
The plan proposes transportation links between the unconnected Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza. But the element of the plan that may prove to be its only lasting effect is American recognition of Israel's claim over the Jordan Valley and all Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
How would this redraw the map of Israel?
The proposal gives American approval to Israel's plan to redefine the country's borders and formally annex settlements in the West Bank and the Jordan Valley that it has long sought to control.
That would leave the West Bank portion of any potential Palestinian state surrounded on all sides by Israel. Israeli forces seized the West Bank from Jordan during the 1967 war, and Israeli settlements have steadily encroached on the region over the decades since, a move largely condemned internationally.
Under the Trump plan, Israeli settlements in the West Bank - like Mitzpe Yeriho - would become Israeli territory. Photo / AP
Netanyahu caused controversy in September when he vowed, while running for reelection, to annex the Jordan Valley, a strategically critical chunk of the occupied West Bank nestled against the border with Jordan. On Tuesday, he made it clear that he saw Trump's plan as giving legitimacy to claiming Israeli settlements and the Jordan Valley as Israeli territory.
"For too long, the very heart of the land of Israel where our patriots prayed, our prophets preached and our kings ruled has been outrageously branded as 'illegally occupied territory,' " Netanyahu said. "Well today, Mr. President, you are puncturing this big lie."
Netanyahu said that his cabinet could move within days to assert sovereignty over those areas, but the decision could be subject to legal challenges because the current government is an interim administration.
What has the Palestinian reaction been?
Despite Trump's assertion that the deal was "a win-win opportunity" for both sides, Palestinians have largely rejected it.
Mahmoud Abbas, the 84-year-old leader of the Palestinian Authority, condemned the plan in a speech on Tuesday evening, calling it a "conspiracy" not worthy of serious consideration.
"We say a thousand times over: no, no, no," Abbas said, speaking from Ramallah in the West Bank.
Palestinian protesters wave national flags and chant angry slogans during a protest against the US Mideast peace plan, in Gaza City. Photo / AP
The Palestinian leadership cut off communication with the Trump administration in 2017 after Washington recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital and later moved the American Embassy to the city. On the streets of Gaza and the West Bank, protests against the plan broke out on Tuesday.
The reaction from other Arab governments has been mixed. None of the United States' Arab allies have formally endorsed the plan or committed to ushering it into reality, though ambassadors from Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates attended the announcement.
Was the focus peace or politics?
David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, said in a call with reporters after the plan was announced that the big reveal was timed in a "nonpolitical way."
He said that the plan was "fully baked" before an Israeli election last April but that American officials had held off introducing it then. When that election produced no government, the United States again postponed any announcement until after a second election in September, he said.
Now, as Israel approaches a third election in less than a year, which could also fail to produce a government, Friedman said that the time had been right to introduce the proposal. He noted that American officials had also discussed the plans with Benny Gantz, the leader of the centrist Blue and White Party and Netanyahu's main rival in the March 2 election.
American officials discussed the plan with Benny Gantz, Netanyahu's main rival in the coming Israeli election. Photo / AP
But experts say that the timing of the rollout has more to do with the domestic politics of the United States and Israel than with resolving the conflict, with Trump facing an impeachment trial and Netanyahu facing trial on corruption charges.
William Wechsler, director of Middle East programs at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based research organization, said in an emailed statement that the plan was unlikely to have a major impact in the short term.
"The announcement's chosen timing, specific staging, limited participants, and indeed its substance make clear that it has less to do with a good-faith effort to reach peace between Israelis and Palestinians," Wechsler said, "and more to do with the immediate legal and electoral challenges that confront both leaders."
