American Peace Plan Unveiled

On Tuesday, more than two years after he first proposed a plan to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, President Trump released the details of his proposal to solve the long-running conflict.

The details are set out in a 50-page document titled ‘Peace to Prosperity’.

The main points seem to be:

• A map to set out borders for ‘a realistic two-state solution.’
• A demilitarised Palestinian state to live peacefully alongside Israel with strict conditions.
• The Palestinians to immediately terminate paying salaries to terrorists and their families.
• A four-year ‘land freeze’ by Israel to secure the possibility of a two-state solution.
• No uprooting of Israeli settlements.
• The status quo to be preserved at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
• Israel to ‘continue to safeguard’ Jerusalem’s holy sites and guarantee freedom of worship.
• Jerusalem to remain united and the capital of Israel.
• The State of Palestine capital to be in East Jerusalem areas east and north of the existing security barrier

The BBC’s veteran reporter on the Middle East says that the US plan ‘sweeps aside inconvenient facts, like UN resolution 242 that emphasises the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war, or international laws that say that occupiers cannot settle their people on occupied land.’

However, as usual this statement ignores the fact that the territory in question was captured in a defensive war, when Israel was under threat from the armies of three neighbouring countries. Also, the same territory had previously been captured by the Jordanians in 1948. So it was ‘occupied’ when Israel captured it.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas openly rejected the American plan even before it was published, saying that Palestinian rights and hopes were not for sale.

Rejecting criticism of the plan, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner said the plan offers the last chance for Palestinians in their quest for statehood. He went on to say:

“This is the first time that Israel has ever agreed to a Palestinian state and it`s the first time Israel has
agreed to a map, so this is an amazing opportunity for the Palestinian leadership.”

He also added that in complaining rather than coming to the negotiation table:

“the Palestinian Authority shows that they are not ready to have a state.”

Amongst the mixed reactions to the plan, some Arab states are clearly in favour of giving it careful consideration. Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that ‘Bahrain supports all efforts to achieve a just and comprehensive solution for the Palestinian cause.’

British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, said on Wednesday that Trump’s plan “has the merits of a two-state solution”, even though it has been criticised for offering Israel a wish-list of long-held demands while promising Palestinians a potential ‘state’ with severe restrictions.