President Donald Trump on Tuesday released his long-awaited Middle East peace plan. Speaking at the White House alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump outlined his “vision for peace, prosperity, and a brighter future for Israelis and Palestinians.”
The proposal, masterminded by Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, attempts to solve the intractable problems between Israelis and Palestinians that have stymied both Democratic and Republican administrations for decades.
It redraws the region’s current borders, defines the future of Jewish settlements in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory, lays out the conditions under which a future Palestinian state could be created, and addresses Israel’s myriad security concerns.
What it doesn’t do is provide a “right of return” for displaced Palestinians to their ancestral homes in Israel, allow for a sovereign state of Palestine to form a military that it could use to threaten Israel (or to defend itself against Israel), or give Palestinians any meaningful part of Jerusalem as its capital.
In fact, it essentially ignores all of the Palestinians’ desires, as the plan was drafted with no input from the Palestinian side.
For that reason, most analysts predicted the deal would be dead on arrival. But that doesn’t mean it won’t still have potentially dramatic consequences for Israelis, Palestinians, and many others in the Middle East.
Palestinians don’t need Jared Kushner to civilize them. They need rights.
Jared Kushner, senior adviser to President Trump and architect of the administration’s new peace plan, stands for a television interview on Fox News outside the White House on January 29, 2020. Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesThe struggle for Palestinian freedom was denigrated, yet again, this week when the leaders of the US and Israel stood side by side at the White House and unveiled the Trump administration’s new “peace plan.”
The plan was met with anger and skepticism from many sides. Top Democrats including Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Amy Klobuchar decried it as “one-sided” and said it “violates the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.”
Read Article >Jared Kushner, architect of Trump’s Middle East peace plan, still doesn’t get it
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner at a press conference with President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on January 28, 2020, in Washington, DC. Alex Wong/Getty ImagesSenior White House adviser and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner spent three years working on the Trump administration’s newly released Israel-Palestine peace plan. Yet the main talking point he’s using to sell the proposal reveals the fundamental problem at the heart of the plan itself: the administration’s tacit endorsement of Israel’s continued illegal settlements in Palestinian territory.
In multiple interviews right after the administration released its proposal on Tuesday, Kushner said Israel’s rapid growth — in other words, the settlements — are precisely why Palestinian leaders should make a deal now.
Read Article >Trump’s Israel-Palestine peace plan, explained
A man peeps from inside his caravan in the Israeli Shilo settlement in the West Bank on January 27, 2020. Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty ImagesPresident Donald Trump claims his peace plan for Israel and Palestine will prove to be a triumph that will last for the next 80 years. But it’s unclear whether it will be viable for even 80 minutes.
That’s because most analysts believe the deal — the political portion of which was finally released on Tuesday — is dead on arrival.
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