US President Donald Trump on Tuesday released his long delayed Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, promising “a new dawn,” but angry Palestinians called it biased and deserving to go in the “dustbin of history.”
Standing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House’s East Room, Trump said his plan could succeed where decades of previous US attempts to intervene had failed.
“Together we can bring about a ... new dawn in the Middle East,” Trump said to an enthusiastic audience that included throngs of Israeli and Jewish American guests — but apparently no Palestinian representatives.
Photo: AFP
They are flat out rejecting the plan, which grants Israel much of what it has sought in decades of international diplomacy, namely control over Jerusalem as its “undivided” capital, rather than a city to share with the Palestinians.
The plan also lets Israel annex West Bank settlements.
Trump praised Israel for taking “a giant step toward peace” with the plan, which lays out a vision for future Palestinian statehood if a series of strict conditions are met.
These include requiring the future Palestinian state to be “demilitarized,” while formalizing Israeli sovereignty over settlements built in occupied territory.
Palestinians angrily rejected the entire plan.
“This conspiracy deal will not pass. Our people will take it to the dustbin of history,” Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said.
Trump promised a “contiguous” future Palestinian state, addressing the current situation where Israel controls broad territory separating the two main population centers of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Yet the map showed the West Bank remaining riddled with Jewish settlements linked to Israel and only a long road tunnel connecting the area with the seaside Gaza Strip.
The plan makes it clear that Israel is free to annex its settlements on Palestinian lands right away.
On the flashpoint issue of Jerusalem, Trump said Israel should retain control over the city as its “undivided capital,” Trump said.
Israeli Minister of Defense Naftali Bennett yesterday said that Trump’s plan created a window for applying Israeli sovereignty on nearly one-third of the occupied West Bank.
“Last night history knocked on the door of our home and gave us a one-time opportunity to apply Israeli law on all settlements in Samaria, Judea, the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea,” Bennett said, using the Hebrew names for areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Bennett said he had already given orders to form a special team within Israel’s security establishment to “implement the application of Israeli law and sovereignty on all Jewish settlements” in the West Bank.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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