tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/middle-east-peace-plan-70257/articlesMiddle East peace plan – The Conversation2020-08-14T05:51:27Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1444952020-08-14T05:51:27Z2020-08-14T05:51:27ZMarriage of convenience: what does the historic Israel-UAE agreement mean for Middle East peace?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352891/original/file-20200814-24-7ctgxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=251%2C314%2C5739%2C3673&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Harnik/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/us/politics/trump-israel-united-arab-emirates-uae.html">The normalisation of diplomatic ties</a> between Israel and the United Arab Emirates has variously been described as a “breakthrough” and an important staging moment towards a comprehensive Middle East peace.</p>
<p>These conclusions are, at best, premature.</p>
<p>Normalisation of relations between Israel and an important Gulf state is a highly significant development whose fallout is unpredictable. What seems clear is that the UAE initiative will further deepen a regional divide.</p>
<p>In the Middle East, historic shifts rarely take place without unforeseen consequences. Israel’s <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/with-trump-s-help-israel-and-the-uae-reach-historic-deal-to-normalize-relations-1.9070687">pledge</a> not to go ahead with the annexation of one-third of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley for the time being will be cold comfort for the Palestinians.</p>
<p>What has been exposed by the normalisation agreement between Israel and the UAE, brokered by Washington, is acceptance of the arguments for a regional buffer to counter Iran’s growing power and influence.</p>
<p>This is a marriage of convenience.</p>
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<img alt="Tel Aviv's city hall lit up with the UAE flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352854/original/file-20200814-18-1ezdhc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352854/original/file-20200814-18-1ezdhc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352854/original/file-20200814-18-1ezdhc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352854/original/file-20200814-18-1ezdhc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352854/original/file-20200814-18-1ezdhc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352854/original/file-20200814-18-1ezdhc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352854/original/file-20200814-18-1ezdhc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">After news of the deal, Tel Aviv’s city hall was lit up with the UAE flag.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Oded Balilty/AAP</span></span>
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<h2>The enemy of my enemy is my friend</h2>
<p>It should go without saying that absent Iran’s growing security threat to Gulf states, it’s doubtful such a normalisation of ties would have taken place outside a comprehensive Middle East peace.</p>
<p>The latest development bears out one of the Arab world’s stock standard sayings: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.</p>
<p>In other words, an Iranian threat to the UAE and its fellow Gulf Cooperation Council members has brought about an accord with Israel that would previously have been unthinkable.</p>
<p>This is not to say this development is unexpected.</p>
<p>Israel has gradually broadened its informal diplomatic contacts with Gulf states in recent years to the point where little attempt has been made to disguise these contacts.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/israel-suspends-formal-annexation-of-the-west-bank-but-its-controversial-settlements-continue-144469">Israel suspends formal annexation of the West Bank, but its controversial settlements continue</a>
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<p>These interactions included <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-oman/israeli-pm-netanyahu-makes-rare-visit-to-oman-idUSKCN1N01WN">a visit by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Oman</a> in 2018. </p>
<p>In all of this, a fault line in the Middle East is likely to deepen between Sunni Muslim states and Iran, as well as that country’s allies in Syria and in Lebanon.</p>
<p>These Sunni states, led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the United States in collaboration with Israel, are building a buffer against Iran.</p>
<p>It may be simplistic to say this, but a die has been cast.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352892/original/file-20200814-18-noty56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352892/original/file-20200814-18-noty56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352892/original/file-20200814-18-noty56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352892/original/file-20200814-18-noty56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352892/original/file-20200814-18-noty56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352892/original/file-20200814-18-noty56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352892/original/file-20200814-18-noty56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Benjamin Netanyahu has put his planned annexation of parts of the West Bank on hold as part of the deal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABIR SULTAN / POOL/ EPA</span></span>
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<h2>What will other Gulf states do?</h2>
<p>Of course, it remains to be seen whether regional friends and erstwhile enemies will remain steadfast in their new commitments.</p>
<p>In the shifting sands of Middle East power politics, today’s friends can be tomorrow’s enemies.</p>
<p>If Israel and the UAE are the betrothed in a marriage of convenience, the Trump White House is the matchmaker. Behind the scenes, Saudi Arabia, the dominant Sunni state in the Gulf, will have encouraged the Emiratis to take the first step</p>
<p>Time will tell how quickly other Gulf states will follow. These Arab fiefdoms will be assessing fallout before taking action themselves.</p>
<p>Among the principal aims of US Middle East policy since President Donald Trump came to power has been to broker improved ties between Israel and America’s Arab allies in the Gulf.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/israels-proposed-annexation-of-the-west-bank-could-bring-a-diplomatic-tsunami-141688">Israel's proposed annexation of the West Bank could bring a 'diplomatic tsunami'</a>
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<p>This has been part of a wider Trump Middle East peace plan to bring about the “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/world/middleeast/peace-plan.html">deal of the century</a>”, as the president calls it, that would end decades of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.</p>
<p>Trump officials believe Gulf states could be more fully engaged in exerting pressure on Palestinians to make concessions that might enable progress towards such a deal.</p>
<p>The UAE and its fellow Gulf states have been among principal donors to the Palestinian movement over many years. Their funding, for example, helped establish and sustain the Palestine Liberation Organisation.</p>
<p>However, times change. Oil-producing Gulf states have much less money to splash around given the demands of their own expanding populations. The collapse in oil prices has not helped.</p>
<h2>Where does this leave the Palestinians?</h2>
<p>In any case, Arab states more generally have found the Palestinian issue increasingly a distraction from their immediate concern of keeping Iran at bay.</p>
<p>By and large, these states paid lip service in their criticism of the Trump “deal of the century” when it was unveiled in January. Previously, their reaction would have been one of outright rejection.</p>
<p>In summary, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-set-to-release-long-awaited-mideast-peace-package-seen-as-generous-to-israel/2020/01/28/883e3d50-41d3-11ea-b5fc-eefa848cde99_story.html">peace plan</a> demanded the Palestinians set aside their long-held dream of a Palestinian state. Instead, they were asked to accept semi-autonomous enclaves in Israeli-controlled territories more or less in perpetuity</p>
<p>Needless to say this was <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-plo-official-lashes-out-at-uae-for-selling-out-palestinians-in-israel-agreement-1.9071095">rejected</a>.</p>
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<img alt="An Israeli border police officer outside a house being demolished in the West Bank." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352865/original/file-20200814-14-1cdrceo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352865/original/file-20200814-14-1cdrceo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352865/original/file-20200814-14-1cdrceo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352865/original/file-20200814-14-1cdrceo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352865/original/file-20200814-14-1cdrceo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352865/original/file-20200814-14-1cdrceo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352865/original/file-20200814-14-1cdrceo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Ownership of the West Bank has been contested since 1967.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Abed Al Hashlamoun/AAP</span></span>
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<p>All this leaves the much-weakened Palestinian movement in a bind. The UAE’s decisions will be viewed by its leaders as one more betrayal of their cause in a long list going back to the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Balfour-Declaration">Balfour declaration of 1917</a>. In that declaration, Britain promised the Jews a homeland in Palestine.</p>
<p>The question for the Palestinians in light of what is effectively and conspicuously a collapse in Arab solidarity in rejection of Israel is what options might be available to them.</p>
<p>Initially, Palestinian reaction has been to decry the UAE’s actions. The Palestinian ambassador to the UAE has been <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/palestinians-recall-ambassador-from-uae-over-israel-deal/story-xEGaScjbVPqYUPq9TaYYHN.html">recalled</a>.</p>
<p>However, these sorts of responses don’t amount to a sustainable long-term strategy for a movement that is both divided and tired. What would seem to be required is a closing of ranks among Palestinians under a younger, more dynamic leadership.</p>
<p>It is long past time for vestiges of the PLO’s historic leadership to move aside to be replaced by a new generation.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-constitutes-fair-and-unfair-criticism-of-israel-128342">What constitutes fair and unfair criticism of Israel?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144495/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The normalisation of ties between Israel and an important Gulf state reveals an acceptance of the arguments for a regional buffer to counter Iran’s growing influence.Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1328582020-03-04T00:13:46Z2020-03-04T00:13:46ZNetanyahu set to survive another knife-edge Israeli election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318455/original/file-20200303-66099-tua23k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/EPA/Atef Safadi</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Benjamin Netanyahu may well have <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle-east/with-focus-on-netanyahu-israelis-return-to-polls-for-fresh-election-20200303-p5468o.html">survived to fight another day</a> as Israel’s prime minister after a third knife-edge election in less than a year.</p>
<p>However, it could be days, or even weeks, before a new Israeli government emerges, after the horse-trading that has become standard after decades of close-run elections.</p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/likud-holds-large-lead-in-early-vote-count-but-coalition-up-in-air/">more than 90% of the vote in the March 2 election counted</a>, Netanyahu’s nationalist Likud party and its allies can probably muster 59 seats in the 120-member Knesset, two short of a majority.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-middle-east-vision-is-a-disaster-that-will-only-make-things-worse-130697">Trump's Middle East 'vision' is a disaster that will only make things worse</a>
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<p>The main opposition Blue and White party of ex-general Benny Gantz will have <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/appearing-to-dismiss-unity-gantz-says-he-will-do-all-possible-to-replace-pm/">trouble cobbling together a Knesset majority</a> of the centre and left, given Gantz has ruled out a coalition with the Arab List.</p>
<p>Gantz’s party slipped at the election from its showing in the previous encounters over the past year, in April and September. This will weaken his hold on his leadership and diminish his bargaining power in a coalition-building process.</p>
<p>The Arab List represents Israel’s Arab population. This accounts for 20% of the country’s people, or 17% of eligible voters.</p>
<p>The Arab List is set to <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Did-election-racism-transform-Israeli-Arabs-into-a-political-powerhouse-619647">improve its position in the Knesset</a> from 13 to possibly 14 or 15 quotas. This is a significant advance.</p>
<p>The wild card in all of this is the position of the staunchly secularist Yisrael Beiteinu party of <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Liberman-holds-onto-kingmaker-role-by-slim-majority-619561">Russian émigré Avigdor Lieberman</a>, whose list appears to have secured up to seven quotas.</p>
<p>This places Lieberman, a former Netanyahu ally turned antagonist, in a potentially powerful king-making position. Lieberman has declared he will not serve in a government populated by the more extreme Orthodox Jewish parties. These political alignments shun military service.</p>
<p>But if there is a lesson in Israel’s politics in this latest fractious stage it is that no constellation of political forces can be taken for granted. Election fatigue after three polls in 12 months may well drive various players towards some sort of accommodation.</p>
<p>Israeli support for the status quo in the person of Netanyahu, who is under indictment on criminal charges, has signalled exasperation with continuing political paralysis. Gantz and his centrist party did not made a compelling case for change.</p>
<p>Lieberman’s support for any coalition that might eventually emerge could be described as fluid, depending on the allocation of the spoils of victory and his own resolute opposition to partnership with parties on the extremities of the religious right.</p>
<p>All this raises the possibility of a national unity coalition that would involve Natanyahu in partnership with Gantz. The two might rotate the premiership. This sort of arrangement has been tried before with varying degrees of success.</p>
<p>It was significant that on election night, after it became clear Netanyahu was likely to survive and Gantz had slipped, the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-election/netanyahu-declares-victory-in-israeli-election-idUSKBN20P3BS">two leaders refrained from making negative references to each other</a>.</p>
<p>On security issues, they are not far apart, in any case.</p>
<p>The point of all this is that Israel has entered a period during which the playing cards will be shuffled in an attempt to come up with the sort of hand that enables relatively stable government.</p>
<p>Complicating calculations about the next stage is the fact that Netanyahu is <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/high-court-petition-seeks-to-block-netanyahu-from-forming-government/">due in court on March 17</a> to face serious charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.</p>
<p>His allies in the Knesset have said they will seek to pass a law that would preclude, or freeze, the prosecution of any sitting prime minister.</p>
<p>That manoeuvre is given little prospect of success.</p>
<p>What may evolve is that judges agree to delay hearings for a short period, pending attempts to form a government. In any case, court proceedings may well drag on for a year or more.</p>
<p>In the meantime, Netanyahu would continue in his role. Remarkably, criminal charges do not preclude such a continuation in office.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the uncertainties a criminal trial engenders would be potentially destabilising politically.</p>
<p>In the end, the willingness of enough Israelis to look the other way when it comes to charges of criminality appears to have enabled Netanyahu to survive as prime minister.</p>
<p>This observation comes with the caveat that, in political terms, not much can be taken for granted in Israel.</p>
<p>Typical, perhaps, of attitudes towards the case against Israel’s leader were these <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/03/how-bemjamin-netanyahu-got-his-electoral-swagger-back-amid-corruption-cases-israel">remarks in The Guardian</a> by a small businesswoman in Jerusalem:</p>
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<p>I don’t mind if he eats takeaway food in boxes covered with diamonds. Look what is happening around us.</p>
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<p>One of the charges against Netanyahu is that he improperly used public funds to feed himself and his family.</p>
<p>From an international perspective, the Israeli election result is likely to pose a significant dilemma. That is if Netanyahu presses on with his threats to annex settlement blocs in the West Bank and the Jordan Valley.</p>
<p>Most countries regard these settlements on land occupied after the 1967 Six-Day War as illegal under international law.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fifty-years-on-from-the-six-day-war-the-prospects-for-middle-east-peace-remain-dim-78749">Fifty years on from the Six Day War, the prospects for Middle East peace remain dim</a>
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<p>This is where a potential Netanyahu victory aligns itself with a possible Trump re-election.</p>
<p>No American president has been as <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-middle-east-vision-is-a-disaster-that-will-only-make-things-worse-130697">accommodating to Israel’s nationalist impulses</a>. No US administration has been as antagonistic to Palestinian aspirations.</p>
<p>Washington yielded to long-standing Israeli pressure to move its embassy to Jerusalem and at the same time <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/18/world/middleeast/trump-israel-west-bank-settlements.html">reverse US policy that regarded settlements as a breach of international law</a>.</p>
<p>If Netanyahu is confirmed as Israel’s prime minister for another term and Trump is re-elected, prospects for an accommodation between Israelis and Palestinians will likely become more distant.</p>
<p>Elections have consequences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132858/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite pending criminal charges, the Israeli prime minister looks likely to form another government.Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1320412020-02-25T18:57:44Z2020-02-25T18:57:44ZDebate: in the West Bank, the palm trees of discord<p>On January 28, 2020, US president Donald Trump announced a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Peace-to-Prosperity-0120.pdf">“peace plan”</a> that would involve the annexation of most of the Jordan Valley by Israel. Most reactions focused on its contradiction with international law – the Israeli occupation of the West Bank has been <a href="https://undocs.org/S/RES/242(1967)">condemned by several United Nations resolutions</a>. The economic context is also important: the feasibility of any annexation would hinge on the agricultural transformation of the Jordan Valley that has been occurring over the last years</p>
<p>Israel occupied the West Bank during the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Six-Day-War">Six-Day War</a> in 1967. On July 30, 1980, the Knesset adopted a <a href="https://www.knesset.gov.il/laws/special/eng/basic10_eng.htm">basic law</a> annexing East Jerusalem without granting citizenship to its residents. The map published with the peace plan put forward by President Trump proposes the annexation by Israel of the part of the West Bank that is least inhabited by Palestinians. This allows annexing land without integrating a non-Jewish population into the state of Israel.</p>
<h2>The key role of medjool date palms</h2>
<p>The rise of <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190114161126.htm">medjool date palm</a> agriculture plays a key role in this process because this agricultural transformation has been emptying the Jordan Valley of its Palestinian inhabitants for several years. A short historical note is useful to understand this.</p>
<p>Families in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nablus purchased land in the Jordan Valley starting in the end of the 19th century. Sparsely inhabited before the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/fr/academic/subjects/history/middle-east-history/war-palestine-rewriting-history-1948-2nd-edition?format=HB&isbn=9780521875981">1948 war</a>, the Valley went through a demographic boom as Palestinian refugees settled there following the Israeli war of Independence. They provided cheap manpower to landowners irrigating from Ein Sultan, Al Auja and Fassayil springs. After 1949, the valley thus hosted agricultural laborers who worked land belonging to people living far away. Sharecropping quickly became the main form of land tenure – most often, farmers did not own the land they cultivated and upon which they lived. Instead, they split the crop revenue half-half with the landowners, a system called “nos-nos” by Palestinians.</p>
<p>The occupation in 1967 triggered the departure of many refugees to Jordan, but sharecropping remained the main form of land tenure in the Jordan Valley, a distinct phenomenon from what happened in the rest of the West Bank. Israeli settlers in the valley introduced the first medjool date palms, which grows only in extremely dry and hot climates – the Jordan Valley suits it perfectly. Global demand for this fleshy date is so strong that its price remains high even when production increases. Palestinian farmers started growing medjool dates at the end of the 1990s. They have been spreading at an accelerating rate since then. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2514848619876546">Our research</a> demonstrated that, in 1999, 524 hectares were covered by date palms cultivated by settlers and 25 hectares by Palestinians. By 2016, these areas had grown respectively to 2,560 hectares and 1,584 hectares.</p>
<h2>The stake of water</h2>
<p>Half of the land covered with Palestinian grown date palms in 2016 had previously been uncultivated whereas the other half had been cultivated for the local market. These crops – vegetables, cereals and bananas – generated little foreign currency. Medjool dates are exported with a very high added value, however, making a significant GDP contribution. Moreover, a date palm tree requires little water, about a third of what a banana tree requires. Dates also tolerate relatively salty irrigation water. In an arid environment, they seem, at first hand, to be an ideal crop.</p>
<p>Israel developed infrastructure to channel wastewater from Jerusalem, Ma'ale Adumim and Bethlehem to a series of reservoirs and wastewater treatment plants along the Jordan Valley. Settlers irrigate their date palm trees entirely with that wastewater, while Palestinian farmers use groundwater, except in the case of a few hectares relying on treated wastewater from Jericho. The demographic evolution of the area means that wastewater supply will increase in the future, while groundwater will become saltier. The uncertainty concerning the future of their water supply constitutes the greatest risk that Palestinian date growers face.</p>
<h2>The interests of Palestinian agribusinesses</h2>
<p>The expansion of Palestinian-grown date palm trees is mostly carried out by agribusinesses whose executives live in Rawabi, Ramallah or Jerusalem, far from the Jordan Valley. They have often studied in American universities and seek support from European donors for <a href="https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/JPE/article/view/22759">wastewater reuse projects</a> in the Jordan Valley similar to those developed by Israel for the settlers. At the same time, they understand that the most cost-efficient and technically reliable approach would be to connect their fields to the Israeli wastewater reuse network. </p>
<p>In June 2019, the United States organised a <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-in-bahrain-air-of-israeli-arab-normalization-and-a-message-to-iran-1.7410754">“Peace to Prosperity” economic conference</a>. There was no official Israeli and Palestinian presence; the US sought an alliance with the Palestinian economic elite. The <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/MEP-narrative-document_FINAL.pdf">White House economic plan</a> aims to “grow the capability of Palestinian farmers to shift their efforts to producing higher-value crops and afford them the opportunity to use modern farming techniques […]” The <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/MEP_programsandprojects.pdf">projects foreseen by the plan</a>, such as refrigerated warehouses, wastewater networks and “critical connections”, are clearly favorable to Palestinian agribusinesses growing date palm trees.</p>
<h2>Drawbacks of this agricultural transformation</h2>
<p>Our research demonstrated several drawbacks linked to the growth of date-palm agriculture. While they are perceived as a means of decreasing agricultural water consumption, in fact they have increased demand. About half of Palestinian date palm trees are planted on land that was previously uncultivated. This generated a demand for water that didn’t exist before. Date palm trees cultivation requires more water than the minimum for their evapotranspiration. For instance, they must be sprayed against mould in February. Another downside is that drip irrigation in an area where there is hardly any rain causes soil salinisation – the salt accumulates and is never washed off. This is not an impediment for agribusinesses because they do not purchase the land they cultivate. Instead, they lease it for a period of 40 years.</p>
<p>Far more crucial, however, is the impact of dates on sharecroppers. Agribusinesses who plant dates do not resort to sharecropping. They mostly hire seasonal labourers two months of the year during harvesting season. Agribusinesses fence their plots, preventing access to plants such as <a href="https://www.healthbenefitstimes.com/common-mallow/">khubbezeh</a>, a variety of mallow that is extremely nourishing. Moreover, no one is allowed to keep on living on fenced plots, however.</p>
<p>Sharecroppers used to live on the land they cultivated and were once food self-sufficient. The switch to seasonal labour thus entails the loss of food security, employment security and housing security for sharecroppers. Our research demonstrated that, between 1999 and 2016, at least 7,567 members of sharecropping families were thus displaced by date palm trees, a significant number compared to the total 51,410 Palestinian inhabitants of the two governorates where date palms are cultivated. The accelerating expansion of date palms since 2016 has furthered this process.</p>
<p>Displaced from their homes and deprived of economic activity for 10 months of the year, sharecroppers and their families are being cleared from the Valley by an economic process of agricultural transformation led by Palestinian agribusinesses that is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07900627.2019.1617679">in part supported by European donors</a>. Emptied of its Palestinian inhabitants, the Jordan Valley becomes an ideal space for annexation by Israel for it allows integrating land without integrating a non-Jewish population.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132041/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie Trottier has received funding from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) through the Land and Water project and from the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) through the Palestinian Water Paracommuns project.</span></em></p>The Jordan Valley, which US president Donald Trump has proposed integrating into Israel, has been transformed by the introduction of date palms, emptying it of its Palestinian inhabitants.Julie Trottier, Directrice de Recherche au CNRS, spécialiste des territoires palestiniens, ART-Dev, UMR 5281, Université de MontpellierLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1321822020-02-24T13:59:21Z2020-02-24T13:59:21ZTrump’s so-called Mideast ‘peace plan’ dispossesses Palestinians<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316327/original/file-20200220-11040-kxgtak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C0%2C5760%2C3828&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Palestinian reacts to tear gas fired by Israeli forces during protests against U.S. President Donald Trump's Mideast initiative in the West Bank city of Ramallah.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nothing is further from a peace effort <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/peacetoprosperity/">than the plan</a> that Israel and the Donald Trump administration have concocted for Palestine. </p>
<p>Previous American administrations have all been pro-Israel, and they’ve made every effort to <a href="http://www.ieim.uqam.ca/spip.php?page=article-oepd&id_article=852">circumvent international law</a>.</p>
<p>But previous U.S. administrations have never formally challenged international law, and they considered the West Bank and Gaza occupied territories.</p>
<p>Support for Israel previously consisted of pressuring the Palestinian Authority, by buying it off if necessary, to get the Palestinians themselves to sign away their rights, thereby allowing international law to be circumvented. </p>
<p>But the present American administration has gone a step further by transplanting its embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing the annexed city as the unified capital of Israel. </p>
<p>The U.S. Israel-Palestine deal openly violates the principles of international law and, if implemented, would set a dangerous precedent. Presented <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51263815">as the “deal of the century”</a> by its proponents, the plan consolidates the occupation of the West Bank, the dispossession of Palestinians and the establishment of an apartheid system under which different laws apply to subjects living in the same territory. </p>
<p>These laws are essentially based on religion: Israel defines itself as a “Jewish state” and it discriminates among the people living under its control accordingly. Christian and Muslim Palestinians, for example, experience the same type of political domination. </p>
<h2>Wye River agreements</h2>
<p>The U.S. plan aims to legalize the series of “<a href="http://www.alhaq.org/publications/8064.html">facts on the ground</a>” that the Oslo Accords had authorized.</p>
<p>It should be recalled that the 1995 Wye River Memorandum, known as <a href="https://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/guide/pages/the%20israeli-palestinian%20interim%20agreement.aspx">Oslo II</a>, divided the West Bank into three zones. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316443/original/file-20200220-92518-112akqi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316443/original/file-20200220-92518-112akqi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316443/original/file-20200220-92518-112akqi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316443/original/file-20200220-92518-112akqi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316443/original/file-20200220-92518-112akqi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316443/original/file-20200220-92518-112akqi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1437&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316443/original/file-20200220-92518-112akqi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316443/original/file-20200220-92518-112akqi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1437&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The areas of the West Bank according to the Oslo II Accord of 1995.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Creative Commons)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The borders of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/areas-occupied-west-bank-190911093801859.html">Areas A and B</a> closely encircled the Palestinian settlements; the internal and municipal affairs of these settlements were placed under partial Palestinian control for Area A and under mixed control for Area B. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-Areas-A-B-and-C-after-Oslo-II_fig1_276258691">Area C was exclusively under Israeli control</a> and included all the rest of the West Bank, including the settlements and the Jordan Valley. This division was presented as temporary. It was supposedly a gradual way of restoring control of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority, with a view to a final settlement to be reached within five years. </p>
<p>Area A was the first step, with others to follow as confidence was rebuilt between the two sides. </p>
<h2>Oslo Accords: A decoy</h2>
<p>However, the Oslo Accords proved to be a decoy. In the years following their signing, Israel intensified settlement activity and the dispossession of Palestinians from their land. </p>
<p>Israel expanded existing settlements, created new ones, destroyed thousands of Palestinian homes and completely snuffed out the Palestinian economy. These abuses have been rigorously documented by the Israeli organization <a href="https://www.btselem.org/">B'Tselem</a>.</p>
<p>All of this was considered illegal, including <a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/mena-moan/israeli-palistinian_policy-politique_israelo-palestinien.aspx?lang=eng">by Canada</a> and various U.S. administrations, despite the fact that Israeli occupation policies were also strongly supported by Canada and the United States. </p>
<p>Palestinian protests were considered counterproductive since there <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/1999/19990209.ga9544.html">was supposedly a peace process</a> that should not be disrupted. On more than one occasion, Canada has thus shamefully <a href="https://www.tdg.ch/monde/grandmesse-geneve-protection-civils-palestiniens/story/29224130">manoeuvred</a>, in co-ordination with Israel and the United States, to prevent the signatories to the <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/Treaty.xsp?documentId=AE2D398352C5B028C12563CD002D6B5C&action=openDocument">Fourth Geneva Convention</a> of 1949 from meeting to consider Palestinian demands. In 1999, for instance, the meeting was <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-194091/">quickly adjourned</a> without allowing for a discussion of the situation on the ground. The excuse: It would undermine the “peace efforts” underway since the Oslo Accords.</p>
<h2>Legalizes stranglehold</h2>
<p>The plan developed by the Trump administration, in close co-operation with Israel, would legalize Israel’s stranglehold on large parts of the West Bank, thus consolidating the occupation and dispossessing Palestinians, once and for all, of an important part of their heritage. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316322/original/file-20200220-10980-1tbz8hj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5372%2C3578&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316322/original/file-20200220-10980-1tbz8hj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316322/original/file-20200220-10980-1tbz8hj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316322/original/file-20200220-10980-1tbz8hj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316322/original/file-20200220-10980-1tbz8hj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316322/original/file-20200220-10980-1tbz8hj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316322/original/file-20200220-10980-1tbz8hj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. President Donald Trump signs a proclamation at the White House in March 2019 formally recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights as Jared Kushner and Benjamin Netanyahu, among others, look on.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Susan Walsh</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The plan would also allow Israel to legally occupy the whole of Jerusalem, whose municipal borders had been extended to include an additional 71 square kilometres taken from the West Bank. </p>
<p>It would also give Israel the Jordan Valley and the vast majority of settlements in the West Bank, where municipal borders are much wider than the occupied area. That means the occupation of these territories would become permanent, dispossessing Palestinians of a significant part of the 22 per cent of their remaining territory. </p>
<h2>‘Apartheid’ made permanent?</h2>
<p>In addition, the apartheid regime currently in effect would be consolidated and made permanent. </p>
<p>Under that regime, individuals living in the West Bank are subject to two different types of law, depending on whether they’re Jewish.</p>
<p>For Palestinians, for example, there are enormous restrictions on their movement, even between non-contested parts of the territory that would be allocated to them. Even a cursory examination of the map proposed by Israel and Trump shows the similarity with the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bantustan">Bantustan system</a> created in South Africa during the apartheid era.</p>
<p>Hopefully Canada, with a record towards Palestine that isn’t very honourable, will not fall even further by supporting Trump’s rogue plan.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132182/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachad Antonius does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Israel-Palestine “peace” plan concocted by Donald Trump’s administration openly violates the principles of international law and, if implemented, would set a dangerous precedent.Rachad Antonius, Full Professor, Department of Sociology., Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1306772020-01-30T19:06:56Z2020-01-30T19:06:56ZHas Trump proposed a Middle East peace plan – or terms of surrender for the Palestinians?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312527/original/file-20200129-92959-kwbqe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C13%2C2986%2C1984&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pondering peace in the Middle East or processing political problems at home?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump-US-Israel/729b06ff11dc4776820953841f5a88a8/4/0">Susan Walsh/AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>January 28, 2020, is a date that will be remembered in Middle Eastern history – but it will take some time before anyone knows for sure how it will be remembered.</p>
<p>The day didn’t start well for Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel’s longest-serving prime minister also became the country’s first prime minister to be <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-indicted-for-corruption-in-three-cases-in-first-for-a-sitting-pm/">indicted while still in office</a>. He faces multiple charges of corruption.</p>
<p>But Netanyahu didn’t have much time to sulk. Just a few hours later, he was standing alongside Donald Trump as the pair unveiled the U.S. administration’s long-anticipated <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Peace-to-Prosperity-0120.pdf">plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace</a>, written in no small part in coordination with – and deeply in tune with – Netanyahu’s policies.</p>
<p>The fact that the plan’s unveiling came as both men face intense domestic scrutiny – the press conference interrupted coverage of <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/11th-hour/watch/trump-impeachment-trial-opening-arguments-in-two-minutes-77739077738">Trump’s impeachment</a> – should not be overlooked.</p>
<p>I have been following developments in the Middle East for a long time as a U.S. State Department official, a lifelong student and now a <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=d6eca65de0085cae06ab5fba2cd72c63111a5df0">professor of Israeli history</a>, and as a dual citizen of the U.S. and Israel. I know how complex the issues are and how past attempts at peace have fallen well short. </p>
<h2>In black and white …</h2>
<p>Trump’s plan comprises two different goals.</p>
<p>The first – fostering Israeli-Palestinian peace, or at least coexistence – is there in black and white for all to read.</p>
<p>The second – tying Trump and Netanyahu’s respective domestic critics into knots – is everywhere between the lines.</p>
<p>While the Trump administration worked on the plan in coordination with Israel and “friendly” Arab states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, it crucially did <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/palestinians-consulted-bahrain-peace-conference-190520110926575.html">not involve the Palestinians</a>. Palestinian resistance to the very development of this plan – out of suspicion, weakness and resentment – was met not with a carrot but a stick, with the U.S. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-47095082">cutting all aid</a> to Gaza and the West Bank in February 2019.</p>
<p>As a result, positions in the plan that might have been viewed as difficult compromises, had they been negotiated, are instead rightly seen as terms of surrender. Yes, the plan gives Palestinians a path to limited statehood, but only after ceding on the core issues of Israeli settlements, refugees and control of much of Jerusalem.</p>
<p>The plan was successfully kept behind the curtains while being drafted, but it now steps out onto a complicated stage. </p>
<p>Relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank have for some years been in utter <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/16/the-real-reason-the-israel-palestine-peace-process-always-fails">political stalemate</a>, even as the two have maintained working-level <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-palestinian-security-ties-likely-to-continue-despite-us-aid-freeze/">security cooperation</a>. In Hamas-run Gaza, Israel has been in a long war of attrition, mixing ongoing less-than-total violence with tacit <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50458141">mutual understandings</a> aimed at managing the conflict.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Israel’s ties with several Sunni Arab states, especially in the Gulf, have been <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/israel-seeking-aggression-agreements-gulf-states-191006145121280.html">deepening</a>, united by a desire to ward off Iran and its <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/03/iran-has-invested-allies-proxies-across-middle-east-heres-where-they-stand-after-soleimanis-death/">Shia proxies</a> in Lebanon and what remains of Syria. Jordan, structurally weak but strategically important due to its location and links to Arab and Islamic actors, balances contending forces with skill and jitters.</p>
<p>Internal Palestinian politics are riven by the bitter rivalry between the nationalist Palestinian Authority and the Islamist group Hamas and by discontent with the Palestinian Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas’ hold on power amid <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/leaked-documents-raise-anger-over-palestinian-corruption/">claims of corruption and mismanagement</a> in the Palestinian semi-government.</p>
<p>Israeli politics is stalemated, too, and headed for its <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/11/middleeast/israel-third-election-netanyahu-intl/index.html">third round of parliamentary elections</a> in less than a year, spurred by fallout from Netanyahu’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-major-democracy-fights-to-maintain-the-rule-of-law-this-time-its-israel-127584">corruption scandals</a> and a fragmented opposition.</p>
<p>Many Israelis are alienated by Netanyahu’s endless legal troubles and divisive politics, but others are <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/23/israeli-politics-netanyahu/">kindled by his attacks</a> on political opponents. Meanwhile the Israeli left has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/opinion/israel-election-netanyahu.html">failed to recover the credibility</a> it lost on security issues following the collapse of 2000’s Camp David talks and the ensuing Second Intifada. </p>
<p>As for Trump, he remains <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/survey-71-of-israelis-approve-of-trump-but-global-ratings-mostly-negative/">popular in Israel</a> – including among centrists, who don’t necessarily follow day-to-day U.S. politics and look unfavorably on former President Barack Obama’s handling of the Middle East.</p>
<p>At home, Trump’s policies on Israel <a href="https://www.jewishdatabank.org/content/upload/bjdb/AJC_2019_Survey_of_American_Jewish_Opinion_(question-by-question_responses).pdf">do not reflect that of the majority of American Jews</a>, who tend to be politically liberal and supportive of a mutually negotiated two-state solution. Rather, Trump’s views chime with that of the smaller but more fervent American Jewish right, and above all with the millions of evangelicals who are a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/28/trump-evangelical-support-2020">key plank of the president’s base</a>.</p>
<p>Into all this drops the 180-page peace plan – whose heart is creating a legally recognized but geographically tiny and fragmented Palestinian state without full military powers – something that falls way short of Palestinian aspirations. Some parts of the plan are not unreasonable, and the many failed attempts at peacemaking to date call for fresh thinking. But the problems in this plan are very real.</p>
<p>It stakes out strong positions on the three hard issues that have bedeviled negotiations time and again: Israeli settlements, the status of Jerusalem and the right of return for Palestinian refugees.</p>
<p>The Trump plan leaves all Israeli settlements in place and proposes a networks of roads and tunnels to help Palestinian move around the cantons that would make up their state. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312531/original/file-20200129-93030-146f7k8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312531/original/file-20200129-93030-146f7k8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312531/original/file-20200129-93030-146f7k8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312531/original/file-20200129-93030-146f7k8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312531/original/file-20200129-93030-146f7k8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1228&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312531/original/file-20200129-93030-146f7k8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1228&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312531/original/file-20200129-93030-146f7k8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1228&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Building bridges or roads to ruin?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Peace-to-Prosperity-0120.pdf">The White House</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It also freezes Jerusalem’s status quo and makes permanent Israel’s security barrier between the city’s east and west. As for the Palestinians who fled or were <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-11104284">forced out of their homes in the 1948 war</a> and their descendants, the plan says they are to be financially compensated. A few will be absorbed into Israel, but most will be integrated into either the envisioned Palestinian state or their current country of residence – which includes the Arab states that have refused to absorb them to date.</p>
<p>These stances will be politically helpful to Netanyahu and congenial to many Israelis, who <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israeli-palestinian-conflict-solutions/.premium-42-of-israelis-back-west-bank-annexation-including-two-state-supporters-1.7047313">want to end the country’s occupation</a> of the Palestinians, if their own personal security can be assured.</p>
<p>To the Palestinians, they represent bitter pills, each of which would be hard enough to swallow on its own.</p>
<p>Reaction to the plan has led to talk of a possible reconciliation between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, something Israel has been trying to avoid – and put security forces <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/01/israel-us-gaza-strip-west-bank-hamas-fatah-donald-trump.html">on alert</a> for further violence.</p>
<p>Another problem is in the thinking that is evident in the plan’s title, “Peace to Prosperity.” Blueprints for economic development are woven throughout. The ideas are laudable. But the notion that the most fervently committed Jews and Arabs will trade away their deepest convictions for financial gain is as unlikely to take hold now as it did in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/world/middleeast/israel-palestinian-oslo.html">Oslo Accords of the 1990s</a>.</p>
<h2>… and red lines all over</h2>
<p>So what happens now?</p>
<p>Netanyahu <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-peace-plan-rolls-out-netanyahu-says-he-will-annex-jordan-valley-settlements/">has announced</a> he will begin to annex territory, in a move his main political challenger, former Army Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, described as “reckless and irresponsible,” even as he says he <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/gantz-says-hell-bring-trump-peace-plan-before-knesset-for-vote-next-week/">accepts the plan’s broad outlines</a> for an eventual settlement. The Palestinians for their part have <a href="https://apnews.com/0dcb0179faf41e1870f35838058f4d18">rejected the proposals</a> and <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium-three-palestinians-wounded-by-live-israeli-fire-in-protest-against-trump-peace-plan-1.8468202">taken to the streets</a> in protest.</p>
<p>The plan raises some serious, immediate questions: How much unilateral action will Netanyahu take without paying a domestic price – especially with Israelis <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/.premium-israel-election-2020-all-the-candidates-running-in-the-march-2-election-1.8406400">returning to the polls in March</a>? And what responses are open to the Palestinians, other than the tried-and-failed turns to violence and appeals to the U.N. – neither of which will move Israeli public opinion in their direction? </p>
<p>Above all, the questions we should be asking are: What does this or any plan do concretely to improve the lives of people in the region? What practical steps could be taken to make viable coexistence – peace is too strong a word – further down the line possible or at least avert new violence triggered by thwarted expectations? </p>
<p>There is no easy solution to the bitter Israel-Palestinian conflict. Unilateral annexation by Israel will only further Palestinian resentment and rejectionism. Too many people, in Washington as well as the Middle East, view the conflict in terms of ideological dreams and agendas, paying little heed to the real needs of people on the ground, Israeli and Palestinian alike. Should this plan become, like so many of its predecessors, a political football on both sides of the ocean, the people who make their homes and live their lives on politicians’ playing fields will lose. </p>
<p>[ <em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130677/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yehudah Mirsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Long in the making, the US administration’s Middle East plan was quickly rejected by Palestinian leaders. It was hardly surprising, as they took no part in its drafting.Yehudah Mirsky, Professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1306292020-01-30T11:30:22Z2020-01-30T11:30:22ZPalestinians will never be convinced a deal with Israel is worth making if annexation is packaged as peace<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312436/original/file-20200129-92992-1a4drsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C11%2C1078%2C916&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Netanyahu and Trump, on the separation wall in Bethlehem. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">E Keelan</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With typical Trumpian bombast, the so-called “deal of the century” for Israel-Palestine “peace” was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-plan/trump-leaps-into-middle-east-fray-with-peace-plan-that-palestinians-denounce-idUSKBN1ZR1SR">unveiled in Washington</a> on January 28, just as dusk descended on the West Bank city of Bethlehem. </p>
<p>While international political leaders may have been waiting with bated breath, there was less enthusiasm among the students I met at a cafe in the West Bank’s Aida refugee camp. They’ve seen and heard it all before; they know the script.</p>
<p>Situated yards from the spot where <a href="https://newint.org/features/web-exclusive/2015/10/09/bethlehem-aida-camp-under-siege">Abed al-Rahman Obeidallah</a> was shot dead by an Israeli sniper in 2015 while wearing his school uniform, the Aida cafe, provides a much-needed workspace for locals and non-locals alike. I’m one of those non-locals, currently based in the West Bank carrying out research on resilience and development in Palestine, and it’s a place I often visit. </p>
<p>The period furniture and artwork in the cafe sit in stark contrast to the nearby modern and imposing Israeli separation wall, declared illegal under international <a href="https://www.icj-cij.org/en/case/131">law</a>. Not that rules seem to apply here. Aida camp has been in the news many times, making headlines in 2017 when it earned the reputation of being the most <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2017/12/crowded-refugee-berkeley/">tear gassed</a> place on earth. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312417/original/file-20200129-92959-1k5dtn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312417/original/file-20200129-92959-1k5dtn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312417/original/file-20200129-92959-1k5dtn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312417/original/file-20200129-92959-1k5dtn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312417/original/file-20200129-92959-1k5dtn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312417/original/file-20200129-92959-1k5dtn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312417/original/file-20200129-92959-1k5dtn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Aida Cafe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">B C Browne</span></span>
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<h2>Weaponising peace</h2>
<p>Since entering the Oval Office in 2016, Trump has overseen a number of controversial steps concerning Palestine and Israel. He officially moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/5/14/17340798/jerusalem-embassy-israel-palestinians-us-trump">Jerusalem</a> in 2018 and recognised Israel’s annexation of the <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190329-us-recognition-of-the-annexation-of-the-syrian-golan-heights-doesnt-do-israel-any-favours/">Golan Heights</a> a year later. His administration also ended USAID contributions to the <a href="http://www.palestinechronicle.com/washington-to-end-all-usaid-projects-in-palestine-by-jan-31/">Palestinians</a> and then rolled back on language that deems Israeli settlements in the West Bank <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-no-longer-thinks-israeli-settlements-are-illegal-this-is-a-green-light-for-more-palestinian-displacement-127356">illegal</a> in late 2019. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-middle-east-vision-is-a-disaster-that-will-only-make-things-worse-130697">Trump's Middle East 'vision' is a disaster that will only make things worse</a>
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<p>Trump’s new <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51299145?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c7gj7q3xpyvt/trump-peace-plan&link_location=live-reporting-story">“vision for peace”</a> in the Middle East proposes setting aside sections of land for a Palestinian state, but current illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories would be annexed to the state of Israel.</p>
<p>The Palestinian leadership condemned the plan, which was met by widespread <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/anger-palestine-trump-plan-protests-turnout-200129130735839.html">protests</a> in towns and cities across the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and in the much-maligned Gaza Strip. Palestinians have become used to rejecting any notion of a peace deal that will have their best intentions at heart as “fake news”. </p>
<p>“Peace” has never been based on “justice” for Palestinians, as I’ve <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/world/middle-east/2018/05/gaza-shootings-show-two-state-solution-out-reach">argued before</a>. It has only ever helped serve the vested interest of a range of external players in the Middle East and has focused on removing Palestinian claims to sovereignty while facilitating Israel’s expansionist settlement programme. </p>
<p>A cursory glance at previous US-sponsored peace efforts highlights the extent to which Palestinians have been consistently coerced into rolling back on their demands – or rights – all the while <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137448743">development aid</a> has flooded the region in an effort to generate acquiescence. </p>
<p>Trump’s proposals should not be shocking – they are a continuation of US foreign policy in the region for many years. As PhD student, Mohammad, reminded me in Aida cafe: </p>
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<p>This didn’t just happen overnight, peace here has always just been another word for colonisation. </p>
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<p>Leading Palestinian scholar Noura Erakat referred to the announcement, which Trump made flanked by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as the <a href="https://twitter.com/4noura/status/1222202633487777794">normalising of colonial violence</a>. </p>
<h2>Leaders under pressure</h2>
<p>With Israelis heading to the polls in March for the third time in a year, the timing of Trump’s announcement appears deliberately choreographed to many. It came during Trump’s impeachment trial in the US Senate, and on the same day that Netanyahu was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51277429">indicted on corruption charges</a> after withdrawing a request for parliamentary immunity. </p>
<p>The significance of the timing was not lost on Mohammad’s friend, Sameh who joined us. </p>
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<p>Isn’t this not just a way of distracting the world from all the corruption charges that these two white guys face? </p>
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<h2>Money won’t fix the problem</h2>
<p>Wrapped within the detail of the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Peace-to-Prosperity-0120.pdf">text</a> is the promise to generate US$50 billion of economic aid, supposed to: “Fundamentally transform the West Bank and Gaza and to open a new chapter in Palestinian history.” </p>
<p>But as <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/money-fix-palestine-occupied-economy-190624180405267.html">others</a> have noted, and as history has shown, the promotion of an “economic peace” will always be doomed to fail. Mohammad reminded us: </p>
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<p>This deal of the century and pouring money into the West Bank, throwing more money at the situation, this is what has been the basis of the flawed approach to change here for years. </p>
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<p>What will, however, fundamentally transform the West Bank is the decision to give a green light to the <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-peace-plan-rolls-out-netanyahu-says-he-will-annex-jordan-valley-settlements/">annexation</a> of illegal Israeli settlements, particularly those in the Jordan Valley. It is a move that will ensure the area is further carved up and one that highlights that a two-state solution is nigh on impossible. </p>
<p>Despite this, international governments will continue to promote the myth of a two-state solution with blunt intransigence in an effort to see a return on years of investment they have pumped into the region. And international NGOs will continue to develop schemes to help generate Palestinian <a href="https://discoversociety.org/2018/09/21/resilience-must-not-be-used-to-plug-gaping-holes-in-palestinian-aid/">resilience</a> rather than agitate for meaningful change. </p>
<p>Implementation of the so-called “deal of the century” will further demonstrate Israel’s flagrant breach of many <a href="https://imemc.org/article/opinion-international-law-is-clear-on-one-point-israels-settlements-are-illegal/">international</a> laws, including the fourth Geneva Convention that forbids the annexation of occupied land. </p>
<p>In December 2019, the International Criminal Court opened an <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-icc-palestinians-israel/icc-to-probe-alleged-war-crimes-in-palestinian-areas-pending-jurisdiction-idUSKBN1YO1S9">investigation</a> into alleged war crimes committed in the Palestinian Territories. Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope that the international community will begin the process of generating some form of justice for Palestine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130629/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brendan Ciarán Browne has received funding for his work in Palestine from the ISSF Wellcome Trust administered through TCIN, Trinity College Dublin.</span></em></p>A view from the West Bank on Donald Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ for Israel and Palestine.Brendan Ciarán Browne, Assistant Professor and Course Coordinator MPhil Conflict Resolution, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1306972020-01-30T00:28:32Z2020-01-30T00:28:32ZTrump’s Middle East ‘vision’ is a disaster that will only make things worse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312684/original/file-20200129-154320-jjs51s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With such an unbalanced offer on foot, it's no wonder Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was happy with it. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/EPA/Michael Reynolds</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>US President Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trumps-vision-peace-prosperity-brighter-future-israel-palestinian-people/">“vision”</a> for Israelis and Palestinians is not a realistic peace plan to end a decades-old conflict. Rather, it’s more like a real estate deal in which one side is a recipient of a low-ball offer.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the other side is continuing to expand its hold on property to which it does not have the title deeds under international law. This is not the “deal of the century”, as Trump claims, but an invitation to Israel to assert its sovereignty over swathes of territory seized in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39960461">the 1967 war</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/fifty-years-on-from-the-six-day-war-the-prospects-for-middle-east-peace-remain-dim-78749">Fifty years on from the Six Day War, the prospects for Middle East peace remain dim</a>
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<p>In return, the Palestinians are being offered a “Swiss cheese” arrangement in which what is left of territory under their nominal control is pock-marked with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/world/middleeast/trump-peace-plan-explained.html">settlement enclaves</a> that will remain subject to Israeli military occupation.</p>
<p>This does not represent a two-state solution, or even a half-a-state solution. The Trump plan is a recipe for endless occupation of a stunted Palestinian entity with little or no prospect of achieving statehood, or even a basic autonomy free from military occupation.</p>
<p>The latest peace plan will likely join other failed initiatives, like rusting ordnance in the desert after Middle East conflicts.</p>
<p>It will do nothing for regional peace and stability. On the contrary, it will provide a rallying call for extremists across the Middle East who have no interest in reasonable compromise that would enable Israelis and Palestinians to co-exist in neighbouring entities.</p>
<p>The fact that Palestinian representatives were not involved in negotiations on a future outlined by the president of the United States and accepted with alacrity by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the most nationalistic and uncompromising leaders in Israel’s history, tells its own story.</p>
<p>The Palestinian leadership severed official contact with the Trump administration in 2017 when Washington <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/06/world/middleeast/trump-jerusalem-israel-capital.html">recognised Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem</a> and shifted its embassy there from Tel Aviv.</p>
<p>The Palestinians can reasonably be criticised for pulling back from direct dealings with the administration, but given Washington’s biases towards Israel, this boycott is hardly surprising.</p>
<p>The Trump plan amounts to not much more than a series of talking points, apart from the green light it gives to Israeli supporters of annexation. In addition, the Palestinian leadership is being asked to agree to terms that fall far short of what had been negotiated in previous peace efforts dating back to the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1993-2000/oslo">Oslo Accords of 1993</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312697/original/file-20200129-154332-1ile9ux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312697/original/file-20200129-154332-1ile9ux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312697/original/file-20200129-154332-1ile9ux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312697/original/file-20200129-154332-1ile9ux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312697/original/file-20200129-154332-1ile9ux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312697/original/file-20200129-154332-1ile9ux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312697/original/file-20200129-154332-1ile9ux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The famous handshake on the White House lawn to signify the accords in 1993 is a distant memory.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Under Oslo, a “Palestinian Self-Governing Authority” would be established for a five-year transitional period, leading to a permanent two-state solution settlement based on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1979/08/18/archives/texts-of-resolutions-242-and-338-resolution-242-nov-22-1967.html">United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338</a>.</p>
<p>These called for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories occupied in war.</p>
<p>Sadly, the Oslo process was stillborn due to toxic internal politics on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. An opportunity was squandered. That was a quarter of a century ago.</p>
<p>Under the Trump plan, the so-called two-state solution is dead for the foreseeable future given that Israel is allowed to annex territory under its control, including the Jordan Valley.</p>
<p>Israel has said it will move ahead with annexation as soon as this coming Sunday.</p>
<p>At the same time, the Trump administration has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/18/world/middleeast/trump-israel-west-bank-settlements.html">validated Israel’s settlement-building on Palestinian land in the West Bank</a> by reversing longstanding US policy that regarded these settlements as a breach of international law.</p>
<p>The Trump “vision” should also be viewed in the context of the US administration’s unprecedented accommodation of an ultra-nationalist Israeli government’s priorities.</p>
<p>No Palestinian representatives attended the unveiling in Washington of the Trump plan celebrated by a US president under threat of impeachment and an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/01/28/world/middleeast/28reuters-israel-palestinians-plan-netanyahu.html">Israeli prime minister charged with corruption</a>.</p>
<p>Arab attendees came from those countries in the Gulf that could be regarded as American clients: Bahrain and United Arab Emirates. Representatives of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan were not present. Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries to have peace treaties with Israel.</p>
<p>While Cairo’s response – like that of Riyadh – to the Trump plan has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/world/middleeast/arabs-reaction-trump-mideast-peace-plan.html">muted</a>, it is unlikely leaders of these two countries will risk demonstrations that would likely follow overt acceptance of arrangements inimical to Palestinian interests.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-can-no-longer-be-counted-on-to-end-israel-palestinian-conflict-96716">US can no longer be counted on to end Israel-Palestinian conflict</a>
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<p>In all of this, the year 1995 should be regarded as the reference point for any discussion of what lies ahead for the Palestinians and Israelis. That was the year a Jewish zealot <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/26/shot-in-the-heart">assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin</a>.</p>
<p>The so-called peace process effectively died that day.</p>
<p>Rabin’s death and Netanyahu’s subsequent election effectively stymied efforts to encourage a more constructive atmosphere in which compromise might be possible.</p>
<p>A combination of Netanyahu’s obduracy and a weak and divided Palestinian leadership has meant prospects for peace have gone backwards since Oslo in 1993. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/14/world/mideast-accord-overview-rabin-arafat-seal-their-accord-clinton-applauds-brave.html">handshake on the White House lawn</a> between Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is a distant memory. </p>
<p>The Trump plan is highly unlikely to reverse a continuing drift away from reasonable compromise. It risks making things worse, if that’s possible.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130697/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trump’s “deal of the century” is not a realistic plan to resolve a decades-old conflict, but an invitation to Israel to expand its territory at Palestine’s expense.Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1288402020-01-24T03:22:44Z2020-01-24T03:22:44Z‘Slow-minded and bewildered’: Donald Trump builds barriers to peace and prosperity<p>The US president “had no plan, no scheme, no constructive ideas whatever”, according to one of the world’s most influential economists. </p>
<p>He was “in many respects, perhaps inevitably, ill-informed”. He was “slow-minded and bewildered”, and failed to remedy these defects by seeking advice. He gathered around him businessmen, “inexperienced in public affairs” and “only called in irregularly”.</p>
<p>This assessment was written a century ago, in 1919, by the up-and-coming economist John Maynard Keynes. </p>
<p>The president was Woodrow Wilson, whom Keynes criticised for his inability to influence Europe’s post-first world war settlement in a way more likely to lead to peace and prosperity.</p>
<p>A century later the United States has another president out of his depth in global affairs. Wilson, at least, was a “generously intentioned” man. What would Keynes make of Donald Trump, whose policies are driven by a sense of entitlement and fear of being played for a sucker?</p>
<p>This week, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump flagged new fronts in his dangerous campaign of economic nationalism. He reaffirmed his intention to reshape the World Trade Organization, which <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/business/davos-2020/story/davos-summit-us-developing-nation-too-wto-unfair-years-donald-trump-1639275-2020-01-23">he said</a> been “very unfair to the United States for many, many years”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/myth-busted-chinas-status-as-a-developing-country-gives-it-few-benefits-in-the-world-trade-organisation-124602">Myth busted: China’s status as a developing country gives it few benefits in the World Trade Organisation</a>
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<p>He fretted about the “tremendous advantages” given to China and India. He threatened tariffs on European cars if the European Union didn’t agree to a “fair” free-trade deal.</p>
<p>The barrier-besotted president is pretty much everything Keynes warned against as ruinous to the prospects of a lasting peace.</p>
<h2>A tale of two presidents</h2>
<p>Keynes had observed Wilson <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/recalling-the-consequences-of-keyness-economic-consequences-of-the-peace/">at the talks in Paris</a> to conclude the Treaty of Versailles, which set out the detail of terms and conditions following Germany’s surrender (on November 11 1918) to end the war. </p>
<p>Wilson had proposed 14 points for a “just and stable peace” but proved completely ineffectual at the talks. The result was a treaty with terms so punitive for Germany they arguably created the conditions for Adolf Hitler to come to power, and thus led to the second world war. </p>
<p>Keynes’s disquiet with the treaty led him to write the book <a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/keynes-the-economic-consequences-of-the-peace">The Economic Consequences of the Peace</a>.</p>
<p>Wilson’s great failure was his inability to prevent punitive action. Trump’s is his love of punitive action. If his default stance in international diplomacy was to be summed up in a three-word slogan, it would be “Make Them Pay”.</p>
<p>In the longer term his administration’s intransigence on climate change may well prove Trump’s worst policy legacy to the world. But right now he is doing most damage through bringing back tariffs, particularly in the trade war started with China.</p>
<p>Trump has claimed (more than a hundred times in 2019, <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-has-made-this-false-claim-about-china-and-tariffs-at-least-100-times-182318319.html">by one count</a>) that he has made China pay by imposing tariffs on Chinese exports to the US. The truth, of course, is that US import tariffs “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26796842?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">were almost completely passed through into US domestic prices</a>”. China pays through its goods being less competitive.</p>
<h2>Trade war costs</h2>
<p>Trump has bragged just as loudly about winning the peace. A week ago he declared a “<a href="https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2020/january/economic-and-trade-agreement-between-government-united-states-and-government-peoples-republic-china">phase one</a>” trade deal as “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-signing-u-s-china-phase-one-trade-agreement-2/">the biggest deal anybody has ever seen</a>”. </p>
<p>But really all this agreement does is reverse some of the harmful actions the US has taken. It has been aptly called a “<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/65557ec4-3851-11ea-a6d3-9a26f8c3cba4">partial and defective</a>” truce. </p>
<p>This week the International Monetary Fund (IMF) updated <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2019/10/01/world-economic-outlook-october-2019#Chapter%201">modelling first published in October 2019</a> estimating the damage the US-China trade war will do in 2020. </p>
<p>Its initial modelling estimated the tit-for-tat tariffs would reduce the level of global GDP in 2020 by 0.8 percentage points. Trump’s “biggest deal anybody has ever seen” will <a href="https://blogs.imf.org/2020/01/20/tentative-stabilization-sluggish-recovery/">reduce that harm, but by just 0.3 percentage points</a>, meaning world growth will be 3.3%, rather than 3.8% in 2020. And that’s only, says IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath, if the deal proves durable. </p>
<p>The IMF’s October 2019 modelling included a breakdown of how much various economies would suffer in 2020 from the trade war. It estimated China’s real GDP would be 2 percentage points lower than otherwise, with the US down 0.6 percentage points. Europe and Japan would lose about 0.5 percentage points. </p>
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<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311292/original/file-20200122-117921-1qqf1la.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311292/original/file-20200122-117921-1qqf1la.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311292/original/file-20200122-117921-1qqf1la.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311292/original/file-20200122-117921-1qqf1la.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311292/original/file-20200122-117921-1qqf1la.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=673&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311292/original/file-20200122-117921-1qqf1la.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=673&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311292/original/file-20200122-117921-1qqf1la.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=673&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2019/10/01/world-economic-outlook-october-2019#Chapter%201">IMF, World Economic Outlook, October 2019</a></span>
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<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311293/original/file-20200122-117927-e3rw5g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311293/original/file-20200122-117927-e3rw5g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311293/original/file-20200122-117927-e3rw5g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311293/original/file-20200122-117927-e3rw5g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311293/original/file-20200122-117927-e3rw5g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311293/original/file-20200122-117927-e3rw5g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311293/original/file-20200122-117927-e3rw5g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">IMF estimates of the effect of US-China trade barriers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2019/10/01/world-economic-outlook-october-2019#Chapter%201">IMF World Economic Outlook, October 2019</a></span>
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<p>China’s economy is growing at three times the rate of the US – an estimated <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2019/02/weodata/index.aspx">6% compared with 2%</a> – so the hit is almost equal. In terms of lost GDP per capita – a proxy measure for how much the tariffs cost individuals on average – the cost is about US$400 a year for both US and Chinese citizens. </p>
<p>Given China’s median income is well below that of the US, that forgone extra income hurts more in China – something fitting the Trumpian narrative that the trade war is making China pay more. </p>
<p>But the lesson of history is that punitive actions come back to bite. As Keynes so eloquently <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Rl2LDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT34&lpg=PT34&dq=%22the+prosperity+and+happiness+of+one+country+promotes+that+of+others%22&source=bl&ots=dYmXtXL7wQ&sig=ACfU3U1aFdrZ1dXO_U_rILYVHXfYezSlrg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjn09makZvnAhU26XMBHVOKChAQ6AEwA3oECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22the%20prosperity%20and%20happiness%20of%20one%20country%20promotes%20that%20of%20others%22&f=false">wrote</a> a century ago, “the prosperity and happiness of one country promotes that of others”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-worse-than-the-us-china-trade-war-a-grand-peace-bargain-111608">What's worse than the US-China trade war? A grand peace bargain</a>
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<p>Crucial to peace and prosperity, Keynes said, was free trade, which he hoped could mitigate the adverse “new political frontiers now created between greedy, jealous, immature, and economically incomplete nationalist States”.</p>
<p>Wilson aspired but failed to replace a world order based on conflict between great powers with one based on rules and reason. Trump, by contrast, seems to prefer conflict over rules and reason. </p>
<p>A punitive approach to international economic relations failed a century ago. We have good reason to fear it now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Hawkins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The prosperity and happiness of one country promotes that of others. That’s a lesson Donald Trump has never learned.John Hawkins, Assistant Professor, School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1160242019-05-06T10:37:11Z2019-05-06T10:37:11ZWhy the Trump administration’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan shouldn’t be released<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272087/original/file-20190501-113835-12nshju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">On the same day, May 14, 2018, Palestinians protest near the border of Israel and the Gaza Strip (left) while dignitaries applaud the opening ceremony of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem (right). </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Israel-Palestinians/c1d294196a1e4f9790b26b834db5a9d0/6/0">AP/ADEL HANA, LEFT, AND SEBASTIAN SCHEINER</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dead on arrival. </p>
<p>That’s what almost every expert predicts will be the fate of the Trump administration’s long-awaited peace plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.</p>
<p>As the author of the new book, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-9780190625337?cc=us&lang=en&">“The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know,”</a> I share this view.</p>
<h2>Low expectations</h2>
<p>Developed in secrecy for the past two years by Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, along with Trump’s longtime lawyers Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman (now U.S. ambassador to Israel), the <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/international/424071-us-envoy-uss-peace-plan-for-israel-and-palestinian-delayed-several">peace plan’s release has been repeatedly postponed</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/kushner-middle-east-peace-plan-to-be-unveiled-after-ramadan/2019/04/23/bc231efc-65e1-11e9-a698-2a8f808c9cfb_story.html?utm_term=.84d854421c7c">According to news reports</a>, it will finally be made public sometime next month. That’s after the new Israeli government is formed and the Muslim holy month of Ramadan ends. </p>
<p>You might think that a plan <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinian-trump/in-leaky-white-house-trump-team-keeps-middle-east-peace-plan-secret-idUSKCN1RM2GQ">cloaked in secrecy</a>, aimed at achieving what President Trump has called the “deal of the century” to end the long-running conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, would be eagerly anticipated and widely welcomed. </p>
<p>But it seems that no one is enthusiastically waiting for this plan or ready to embrace it, least of all <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/21/israeli-minister-dismisses-trump-peace-plan-as-waste-of-time">Israelis</a> and <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/42463144-5d14-11e9-939a-341f5ada9d40">Palestinians</a>. Even President Trump has kept his distance from the plan and, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/it-might-be-the-trump-peace-plan-but-officials-say-he-hasnt-actually-seen-it/">reportedly, hasn’t read it in full</a>.</p>
<p>About the only thing the Trump administration’s peace plan has going for it is the fact that nobody expects it to succeed. With expectations so low, there’s less risk that the likely failure of the plan will trigger another round of Israeli-Palestinian violence. </p>
<p>That’s what happened previously when U.S.-led efforts to make peace failed. The Second Intifada, for example, <a href="https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/jcs/article/view/220/378#a105">erupted shortly after the failure of the peace talks at Camp David in July 2000</a>. </p>
<h2>Dim chance of success</h2>
<p>There are many reasons why Kushner’s peace plan seems doomed to fail. Some of these are the Trump administration’s own making. </p>
<p>President Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/06/world/middleeast/trump-jerusalem-israel-capital.html">recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017</a> – with no mention of Palestinian claims to East Jerusalem. Since then, relations between his administration and the Palestinian leadership based in the West Bank have gone from bad to worse. </p>
<p>The administration has taken a series of punitive actions against Palestinians. They include <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/us/politics/trump-unrwa-palestinians.html">ending U.S. funding for the U.N. agency responsible for Palestinian refugees</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-palestinians/trump-cuts-more-than-200-million-in-u-s-aid-to-palestinians-idUSKCN1L923C">slashing aid to the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority</a>, <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/10/trump-plo-office-close-washington-813574">closing the PLO’s office in Washington, D.C.</a> and even <a href="https://forward.com/fast-forward/410345/us-eliminates-funding-for-israeli-palestinian-coexistence-programs/">eliminating funding for Israeli-Palestinian coexistence programs</a>.</p>
<p>But those actions have not forced the Palestinian leadership to be more compliant and compromising. </p>
<p>Instead, the measures <a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5495813,00.html">stiffened their resistance to American pressure</a> while angering and alienating the Palestinian public, who have <a href="https://www.apnews.com/3fad5d9e1fb94159a95decb08623e7d2">suffered as a result of the cutbacks in U.S. aid</a>.</p>
<p>Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/rejecting-trump-abbas-at-un-says-us-too-biased-to-mediate-talks-with-israel/">railed against the Trump administration’s pro-Israel bias</a>, and the Palestinian Authority that Abbas heads has <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-aide-we-wont-meet-with-kushner-greenblatt-or-any-us-officials-on-peace/">refused to meet with or talk to Trump administration officials</a>.</p>
<h2>Political aspirations vs. money</h2>
<p>Even if President Abbas were not so hostile to the Trump administration and vice versa, he would never accept the terms of the peace plan that Kushner and company have devised. </p>
<p>Although its details remain secret, its broad outlines have gradually emerged. </p>
<p>In exchange for a massive infusion of aid and investment financed by wealthy Arab gulf states, the Palestinians would have to accept Israeli settlements deep inside the West Bank, Israel’s permanent control over the Jordan Valley and a long-term Israeli military presence in the West Bank, where <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/we.html">roughly 2.8 million Palestinians live</a>. </p>
<p>The Palestinians would also have to <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/jordan/.premium-why-jordan-is-worried-about-trump-s-peace-plan-1.6198909?=&ts=_1529868895903">abandon their demand for a capital in East Jerusalem</a> and <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/trump-s-peace-plan-will-not-include-sovereign-palestinian-state-report-says-1.7120374">maybe even give up their decades-long quest for sovereign statehood</a>. </p>
<p>No Palestinian leader would agree to these terms, <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/01/23/israeli-palestinian-conflict-is-not-bankruptcy-sale-pub-78208">which effectively amount to a surrender to long-time Israeli demands, not a peace agreement based on mutual compromise</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-un/un-bemoans-unsustainable-palestinian-economy-idUSKCN1LS2ON">Palestinians desperately need economic opportunities</a>. But I doubt they will pressure their leadership to capitulate – <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/jared-kushner-criticizes-abbas-in-rare-palestinian-newspaper-interview-1.6200287">as Kushner apparently hopes they will</a> – or forsake their long struggle for national self-determination. </p>
<p>And many younger Palestinians, who are less committed to the goal of Palestinian statehood, would <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/2018/07/20/palestinians-israel-abbas-gaza-west-bank-peace-pa-palestinian-authority-hamas-1016978.html">prefer to have Israeli citizenship</a> than live in a small, fragmented, autonomous Palestinian entity. </p>
<p>Nor will Arab states like <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/saudis-say-u-s-peace-plan-must-include-e-j-l-as-palestinian-capital-1.6319323">Saudi Arabia force the Palestinians to accept such a one-sided deal</a>. Kushner’s friend, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, might be <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Saudi-Arabia-offered-Abbas-10-billion-to-accept-Trumps-peace-plan-report-588294">willing to offer Abbas billions of dollars</a>, but that won’t entice Abbas to give up Palestinian political aspirations and territorial demands.</p>
<h2>Prelude to Israeli annexation</h2>
<p>While the Palestinians are bound to reject the Trump administration’s peace plan, the Israelis are unlikely to fully embrace it, despite its decidedly pro-Israel bent. </p>
<p>Prime Minister Netanyahu will certainly be careful not to antagonize President Trump, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/10/world/middleeast/netanyahu-trump-election-scandal.html">with whom he has forged a friendship and political alliance</a>. </p>
<p>But he will also be careful not to lose the support of his coalition partners on which the survival of his government depends. </p>
<p>It seems likely that Netanyahu’s government will include <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/far-right-slate-to-offer-pm-immunity-law-in-exchange-for-settlement-annexation/">far-right parties that want Israel to annex the West Bank</a>, in whole or in part. They will object to any plan that cedes West Bank territory to the Palestinians, since they regard it as sacred land that belongs to the Jewish people for eternity.</p>
<p>I believe there is a real risk that a new, right-wing Israeli government will seize upon Palestinian rejection of Kushner’s peace plan to justify annexing Israeli settlements in the West Bank. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-settlements/israels-netanyahu-says-plans-to-annex-settlements-in-west-bank-if-reelected-idUSKCN1RI0JY">television interview</a> shortly before the recent Israeli election, Netanyahu promised to extend Israeli sovereignty to its settlements in the West Bank. This was undoubtedly a last-minute bid by Netanyahu to convince right-wing Israelis, especially settlers, to vote for his Likud Party. </p>
<p>Yet Netanyahu may have no choice but to fulfill this promise if he forms a right-wing government with a slim parliamentary majority. The inevitable failure of Kushner’s peace plan might give him the perfect opportunity to do this – with American acquiescence, if not support.</p>
<p>To avoid this danger, and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/opinion/trump-israel-golan-heights.html">potentially dire consequences that could follow from Israel’s annexation of its West Bank settlements</a>, I think it would be better if the Trump administration just kept its peace plan to itself.</p>
<p>Releasing the plan will probably do more harm than good. It almost certainly won’t bring peace, and it could ultimately lead to a severe deterioration in Israeli-Palestinian relations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116024/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dov Waxman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>About the only thing the Trump administration’s peace plan has going for it is the fact that no one expects it to work. And the plan’s likely failure could trigger more Israeli-Palestinian violence.Dov Waxman, Professor of Political Science, International Affairs and Israel Studies, Northeastern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.