Trump’s Mideast Plan Offers Rallying Cry for Embattled Netanyahu
Trump Middle East Plan Offers Quick Win for Embattled Netanyahu
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump made sure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was standing alongside him at the White House on Tuesday as he presented his long-delayed “deal of the century” for Middle East peace, a welcome distraction for two leaders fighting for their political futures.
Yet the proposal -- which makes far more demands of Palestinian than Israeli leaders -- generated little enthusiasm, prompting an emergency meeting of the Arab League, scheduled for Saturday, and criticism from some key U.S. allies, including Jordan and Turkey.
Palestinian officials, who refused to take part in talks after Trump alienated them early in his term, denounced it outright.
The plan gives Israel tacit approval to annex a swath of established settlements immediately while offering Palestinians the possibility of a fragmented nation-like state years in the future: An offer they see as worse than what they’ve received in previous negotiation efforts that broke down.
Yet Palestinian approval may have been a secondary goal at best.
For Trump and Netanyahu, who both face mounting legal troubles and re-election campaigns this year, the 80-page plan was an opportunity to show their core supporters that they’re bold leaders willing to skirt failed conventional wisdom in the pursuit of peace. The hastily arranged White House event came as Trump’s impeachment trial continued in the U.S. Senate. Netanyahu, at the same time, is looking for any advantage heading into an early March election and is confronting multiple indictments on bribery and corruption charges in Israel.
“Trump gets a distraction from impeachment and another opportunity to boost his support from Christian evangelicals and others who favor whatever the Israeli government wants,” said Paul Pillar, a former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency officer and a non-resident senior fellow at Georgetown University in Washington. “Netanyahu gets another chance to show that it is he, and not Benny Gantz, who can get the U.S. administration to do whatever Israel wants.”
Netanyahu wasted little time moving quickly to capitalize on Trump’s proposal, saying his cabinet would meet in the coming days to authorize the annexation of portions of the West Bank that Palestinians say is illegally occupied.
Trump signaled some ambivalence about the plan earlier in the week, saying “we’ll see whether or not it catches hold. If it does, that would be great. And if it doesn’t, we can live with that, too, but I think we might have a chance.”
For decades, American diplomats walked a tightrope in the region, seeking to appear impartial as they proposed ideas intended to somehow nudge both the Israelis and Palestinians toward some sort of consensus while also winning broader Arab support. But in a radical shift, Trump has dispensed with that approach altogether, aligning U.S. policy decisively with Israel in a way few in Jerusalem could have imagined just years ago.
The American president has defended his unconventional approach to resolving what he’s called the world’s most difficult negotiation by pointing out that previous efforts have failed.
“I was not elected to do small things or shy away from big problems,” Trump said.
Cutting Aid
Trump previously broke with international norms on the Middle East by moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, recognizing Israel sovereignty over part of the Golan Heights and proclaiming that Israeli settlements in the West Bank aren’t necessarily illegal, measures all supported by Netanyahu. The administration has also cut off most U.S. aid to the Palestinians.
At one point, as Trump promised the deal would benefit the Palestinians as well, he told his audience, which included pro-Israel casino magnate and Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, not to clap.
“Today Israel takes a big step towards peace,” Trump said. “My vision presents a win-win opportunity for both sides. There’s nothing tougher than this one, but we have to get it done.”
But the pomp of the ceremony belied the widespread view outside the White House that the plan is probably dead on arrival.
Speaking after Trump’s presentation, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said “we say ‘no,’ and a thousand times ‘no”’ to the Trump vision. In a televised address from his headquarters in Ramallah, Abbas vowed to begin dissolving the Palestinian Authority, leaving a void in the region.
Netanyahu said at the White House that it may take the Palestinians “a very long time” to get an independent state, but “if they agree to abide by all the conditions you’ve laid our in your plan, Israel will be there.”
A map Trump tweeted out after the presentation showed a patchwork of Palestinian territory, portions of which were linked only by a road or tunnel, featuring vague developments such as a “high tech manufacturing industrial zone” along the border with Egypt that currently don’t exist.
‘No Future’
“The plan gives no future, no hope for the Palestinians as it leaves them strategically weak, living in cantons and with no sovereignty or geographical continuity,” said Ibrahim Fraihat of the Palestine Academic Group, a network of Palestinian scholars in Arab and international universities.
Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and chief architect of the plan, said the map was a bold sign of the president’s initiative.
“This is the first time in the history of the peace process that there’s been an official map that was drawn,” Kushner said in a Bloomberg Television interview. But he also appeared to belittle Palestinian leaders, saying they haven’t shown that they are ready to govern a viable state.
Trump said his proposal would require the Palestinian Authority to adopt “basic laws” on protecting human rights, fighting corruption, stopping malign activities of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, ending financial compensation to terrorists and stopping incitement against Israel. He said territory destined for Palestinian control would stay undeveloped for four years to give space for talks with Israel to progress.
‘Right of Return’
The plan also rejects a key Palestinian demand -- the “right of return” by Palestinian refugees. Instead, refugees and their descendants who have long sought to return to Israeli-controlled territory would have to choose between remaining in Palestinian lands, moving to a third country or integrating into the country they currently live in.
Jordan, an American ally, rejected the U.S. proposal and said in a statement that a Palestinian state must be negotiated based on Israel’s 1967 borders, before the Six Day War.
At Abbas’s request, the Arab League will meet in an emergency session in Cairo on Saturday. Ahead of that gathering, the organization’s chief, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said that an initial reading of the plan suggests a major squandering “of the Palestinians’ legitimate rights” to their land. “The Palestinian position will decide the collective Arab position,” he said.
Trump addressed Abbas directly in his speech, saying he sent the Palestinian leader a letter and vowing that the U.S. proposal would foster economic prosperity for his people.
“President Abbas, I want you to know that if you choose the path to peace, America and many other countries -- we will be there,” Trump said. “We will be there to help you in so many different ways.”
But some observers said they only see a future of more conflict.
“This ‘peace plan’ is not about peace at all but rather is a further extension of the Trump administration’s already firmly set course of going all in with the Netanyahu government of Israel,” Pillar said “It does nothing to resolve the longstanding issues in dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians.”
--With assistance from Samer Khalil Al-Atrush.
To contact the reporters on this story: David Wainer in New York at dwainer3@bloomberg.net;Glen Carey in Washington at gcarey8@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, John Harney
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