Trump's Middle East peace plan: a realistic offer
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Blake Coe examines the relative merits of Trump’s proposed Middle East plan.
America’s new deal to end the Israel-Palestine conflict has finally been released. Dismissed by many as a nonstarter that heavily favours Israel at Palestine’s expense, it may not get very far. However, it is a reasonable proposition and a good starting point for negotiations. The Palestinian Authority would be well advised to take it seriously and work with it to find a solution.
The plan offers a contiguous Palestinian state, extra land currently in southern Israel, no resettlement of anyone, anywhere; independence and sovereignty, a full seat at the United Nations, $50billion dollars of development aid, a four-year freeze on settlement building during negotiations, drastically improved living standards in Palestine and the assurance of Israeli security. In short, there are a lot of benefits for everyone involved.
The main concessions demanded of the Palestinians are Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem, the West Bank settlements, and the Jordan Valley. But there is a good reason for this. Given the Palestinian authority is deeply antisemitic and committed to a “final resolution” of a Judenrein Palestine, Israel will never abandon its citizens in East Jerusalem and the West Bank to Palestinian rule. Israel could of course, forcibly remove every single Jew in the occupied territories. But I would defy anyone, so soon after the 75th anniversary of the Holocaust, to defend the deportation of 600,000 Jews along ethnic lines.
In short, Israel will never cede these territories. As far as the Palestinians are concerned, trying to obtain them is futile. If the Palestinian Authority genuinely wants peace and a state of its own, it will have to accept this reality. This is to say nothing of the rights or wrongs of the situation, it is just to state it as it is.
Trump’s offer is also just a starting point for negotiation. Who is to say the Palestinians couldn’t negotiate a little more land, the closing of all the illegal outposts, some of the smaller settlements with Israeli financial incentives, and a pathway towards control of the Jordan Valley? The Israelis would almost certainly make such terms work in return for a solution to a conflict that is now more than 70 years old.
The Palestinians have a choice to make. They can accept that the removal of settlements and handing over of East-Jerusalem are unrealistic goals, and work within this reality to make their people as free and as prosperous as possible. Or, they can carry on endlessly with a hopeless crusade whilst those they are supposed to represent languish in poverty and isolation.
This marks the sixth time the Palestinians have been offered a state. 1937, 1947, 1967, 2000, 2008 and 2020. It has also been the sixth time they have said no. There has however been a shift in opinion amongst Arab states. Their relations with Israel are warming fast and they have declining patience for the Palestinian Authority’s intransigence. Without the support of their traditional backers, the Palestinians might be forced back to the negotiating table. This conflict is not going to be resolved any time soon, but there is a renewed hope of progress - however slow and arduous it may be.
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