A week after the big reveal, something has gone terribly wrong with the Trump administration’s self-styled “Vision to improve the lives of the Palestinian and Israeli people.”
The document published by the White House last Tuesday broke ground in taking seriously many Israeli concerns that were marginalized, if not ignored, in previous peace efforts. Critically, it was predicated on the imperative that the rise of a Palestinian state in no way undermines or threatens Israel’s security, and that the US would only ask Israel to consider compromises that would make the country and its people “more secure in the short and long term.” It also included innumerable elements guaranteed to infuriate the Palestinians — radically constraining their future sovereign rights, denying them significant status in Jerusalem, refusing their demand for a “right of return” for refugees, and plenty more.
But the document was also declaredly only a starting point — “designed for the benefit of Palestinians, Israelis and the region as a whole” as a recommended basis for direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiation on a “realistic two-state solution.”
As it stated early on, “The role of the United States as facilitator in this process has been to collect ideas from around the world, compile them, and propose a detailed set of recommendations that can realistically and appropriately solve the conflict. The role of the United States is also to work together with other well-meaning countries and organizations to assist the parties in reaching a resolution to the conflict. But only the Israelis and Palestinians themselves can make the decision to forge a lasting peace together,” it stressed (my italics). “The final, specific details of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Agreement, must be worked out directly between the parties.”
And yet no sooner had the participants in the East Room ceremony dispersed than Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, one of the key architects of the plan, was telling reporters that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could go ahead, right away, and annex the 30% of West Bank territory that the plan allocates to Israel — largely comprising the Jordan Valley and all the settlements — with the further assurance that once Israel had applied its law to those areas, the US would recognize the move. READ MORE
