As expected, the Palestinians rejected out of hand President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century” and obtained the blessings of the Arab League in doing so. The chilly responses to the plan by Russia and the European Union were also foregone conclusions. Trump special adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner was quick to clarify that implementation of the “plan” would be suspended until after the March 2 elections in Israel, but would that really change anything?
The coalition government formed after the elections may not have a majority keen to implement the plan. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “natural partners,” namely, Naftali Bennett and his Yamina party, can’t even hear the word “Palestine.” Meanwhile, Blue and White leader Benny Gantz announced his support for the plan as a basis for negotiations with the Palestinians, but how can one negotiate with a party that was never included in the deal in the first place? To conduct real negotiations to resolve the conflict, an honest broker must be engaged. Anyone who dares claim that Trump is an honest and impartial mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict should prepare for a White House attack of venomous tweets and rightly so.
No other word better describes the US administration’s pro-Israel bias more than “terrorism.” It appears no fewer than 63 times in the 181 pages of the American blueprint posted online, and without exception, each and every time refers to Palestinian terrorism. The need to protect Israel’s citizens from Palestinian terror is the root of the plan. It requires the demilitarization of any future Palestinian state and demands that Hamas and other Palestinian organizations be disarmed, stipulates closer intelligence sharing with neighboring Arab states and, of course, Israeli security control over the entire area from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean.
No Israeli politician or Palestinian pundit would bet money on the realization of the deal of the century. On the other hand, security officials on both sides believe the plan’s humiliation of the Palestinian leadership and its dominant component, the Fatah movement, will prompt a wave of terrorism in the West Bank and perhaps in Israeli cities as well. In parallel, experience has shown that Jewish terrorists seeking to force the Palestinians out of the “God-given Land of Israel” will not lay down their arms either.
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