Trump proposes Palestinian state – and promises massive support to Palestinians. The most important questions and answers on Trump’s “Plan of the Century” for the Middle East

Armistice line from 1949

–
–

—

According to Israel’s head of government, his friend’s “plan for the century” offers Trump a unique opportunity that Israel should not miss. Netanyahu enthused on the way to Washington that he was hopeful that the plan would make history. He had spoken to Trump and his employees about the national and security policy needs in “hundreds of hours” in the past three years and was met with open ears.

The opposition leader, Benny Gantz, was also full of praise for Trump before the meeting and called him a “true friend of Israel”. The former army chief, however, was much more reserved about the Middle East plan than Netanyahu. He seems to see it more as a basis for further negotiations than as a proposal to resolve the conflict. Basically, the positions of the two opponents with regard to the conflict with the Palestinians do not differ much. Gantz recently spoke out in favor of annexing the West Bank. Unlike Netanyahu, however, he relies on negotiations with the Palestinians. Trump’s plan shouldn’t talk about that.

The President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, was not invited to Washington. His spokesman threatened Israel and the United States with countermeasures should the Palestinian plan contain unacceptable demands. The Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat called the plan a «fraud of the century». In the Gaza Strip, factions of the Hamas movement even threatened a new intifada.

The Trump administration has been one-sidedly behind Israel in Middle East policy and broken the decades-long consensus of Western Middle East diplomacy by officially recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving its message from Tel Aviv to it. In addition, it no longer regards the construction of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories as a violation of international law. Israel recognized the annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights and closed the Palestinian Mission in Washington.

This cemented the current state of power politics, and the Palestinians have no chance of a reasonably fair agreement. Trump’s son-in-law Kushner has repeatedly made it clear that the USA has moved away from the two-state solution. From the Palestinian perspective, Washington has lost all credibility as a mediator, and a solution to the Middle East conflict seems more distant than ever.

Most countries in the region, as well as the EU, are likely to be highly critical of Trump’s plan. Brussels continues to adhere to the two-state solution and has repeatedly complained in the past that Trump’s unilateral Middle East policy is not helping to end the conflict, it is only cementing it.

Trump had announced his Middle East plan a long time ago, but had repeatedly postponed the presentation on the pretext that there had been no fully functioning government in Israel for a year. Given the repeated delays, many Middle East experts even suspected that Trump really had no plan.

Now the president suddenly decided to go on the offensive shortly before the parliamentary elections in Israel on March 2. Most likely he had wanted to help his friend Netanyahu. Israel’s head of government is under enormous pressure due to a corruption process and is currently fighting with all means for re-election and for immunity from law enforcement. Trump has tried to help Netanyahu with such tactical moves and announcements before parliamentary elections. From the point of view of critics of the government, the appointment in Washington is more about campaign aid for Netanyahu than about peace with the Palestinians. The left-liberal daily “Haaretz”, for example, wrote that the “deal of the century” was more of a “gift of the century”.