RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15503/trump-middle-east-palestinians

Israel and the future Palestinian state could sign bilateral agreements and cooperate for their mutual benefit in many areas where Israeli expertise is recognized: agriculture, water, scientific research, technology, medicine. Why should the Palestinians be the only people not benefiting from it? The Trump deal could provide a dazzling future for those Palestinians who prioritize their economic situation over ideology.

It is also highly unlikely that any potential Democrat administration would come up with a more Palestinian-friendly plan that could also be accepted by Israel. And… there is little chance that the Palestinian cause will return to the center of the international agenda and find new allies, except on European and American university campuses.

Instead of openly supporting the Trump Plan, the European Union has already reacted in its usual way: by saying nothing substantial — which is tantamount to preferring the current impasse and encouraging the Palestinians in their rejection of the Trump Plan and Israel. Cynicism will continue to prevail in European diplomatic circles.

Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority may remain self-righteous and draped in their claims, but it would unmask their real role as corrupt and autocratic leaders, intent on keeping their people as destitute and unempowered as possible.

President Donald Trump just unveiled his long-awaited Middle East peace plan, “Peace to Prosperity”, a strategy offering the Palestinians a state, $50 billion in international investment, and a US embassy in the newly-created state. This is a major step forward that the Palestinian Authority would be smart to accept as a starting point for discussions with Israel.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/opinion/middle-east-peace-plan.html?emc=rss&partner=rss

egarding President Trump’s peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the instant conventional wisdom is that it’s a geopolitical nonstarter, a gift to Benjamin Netanyahu and an electoral ploy by the president to win Jewish votes in Florida rather than Palestinian hearts in Ramallah.

It may be all of those things. But nobody will benefit less from a curt dismissal of the plan than the Palestinians themselves, whose leaders are again letting history pass them by.

The record of Arab-Israeli peace efforts can be summed up succinctly: Nearly every time the Arab side said no, it wound up with less.

That was true after it rejected the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan, which would have created a Palestinian state on a much larger footprint than the one that was left after Israel’s war of independence. It was true in 1967, after Jordan refused Israel’s entreaties not to attack, which resulted in the end of Jordanian rule in the West Bank.

It was true in 2000, when Syria rejected an Israeli offer to return the Golan Heights, which ultimately led to U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty of that territory. It was true later the same year, after Yasir Arafat refused Israel’s offer of a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem, which led to two decades of terrorism, Palestinian civil war, the collapse of the Israeli peace camp and the situation we have now.

It’s in that pattern that the blunt rejection by Palestinian leaders of the Trump plan — the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, denounced it as a “conspiracy deal” — should be seen. Refusal today will almost inevitably lead to getting less tomorrow.

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Trumps-game-changing-speech-of-the-century-616005

US President Donald Trump’s speech on Tuesday in which he outlined the “Deal of the Century” that has been three years in the making, was nothing short of Earth-shattering. The fact that Israelis across the political spectrum have been arguing over the proposal – called “Peace to Prosperity” – is thus as understandable as it was inevitable.

Unfortunately, however, much of the debate has been focused on the details and viability of the plan, rather than on the significance of how Trump presented it, and why his words were revolutionary. In an effort to downplay the momentousness of the event, his left-wing detractors ridiculed his mispronunciation of “al-Aqsa Mosque” and “United Arab Emirates” with memes and tweets.These are the same haters who have been accusing Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of conspiring to bolster each other’s chances of electoral success, the former in November and the latter on March 2.

These are the Israelis with the moral and occasional financial support of their counterparts abroad who blame the Jewish state for the plight and antisemitism of the Palestinians. Luckily, such people are in the minority, albeit a vocal one.

The majority of the populace came to realize long ago that the “land for peace” formula is nothing but a recipe for an escalation of the ongoing war against the very Jews begging to resolve the conflict through self-flagellation and appeasement.

US policy:

*The Deal of the Century (DoC) demonstrates the US independence of diplomatic action rather than subordinating its interests to the whims of the UN, Europe and the 3rd World.

*The DoC proves that the US is not trapped in the fallacy of moral equivalence and distorting neutrality, which misrepresent reality, undermining US interests.

*The DoC may reveal that the US has realized that the Palestinian issue is not a core cause of Middle East turbulence, is not a crown jewel of Arab regimes, nor the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

*The DoC confirms that the US recognizes Israel as a unique ally, a battle-tested laboratory for the US armed forces and defense industries, and a force multiplier in the face of the threats posed by Islamic Sunni terrorism and Iran’s Ayatollahs’ ballistic, nuclear and terrorist capabilities.

*All prior US peace plans crashed against the rocks of the Middle East. Is the DoC consistent with the ruthlessly uncontrollable and unpredictable Middle East?

Middle East reality:

*In pursuing the DoC, one should be aware that Western values – including democracy, negotiation, adherence to agreements and peaceful coexistence – do not apply to theArab/Muslim Middle East, which is characterized by the following 14-century-old intra-Muslim features: no intra-Muslim peaceful coexistence, unpredictability, instability, religious and ethnic fragmentation, violent intolerance, terrorism and subversion, Islam-driven goals and values (including the unacceptance of an “infidel” entity in the “abode of Islam”).

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15506/abbas-chooses-hamas-over-peace

Hamas and Iran have no plans to boost the economy in the Gaza Strip. They also have no intention of creating jobs for thousands of unemployed Palestinians.

“After years of no progress, the donor community is fatigued and reluctant to make additional investments so long as the governance structure in Gaza is run by terrorists who provoke confrontations that lead to more destruction and suffering.” — From the “Peace to Prosperity” plan.

In fact, the wording of Trump’s plan is quite compatible with the position of Abbas and his PA officials in the West Bank.

By forging an alliance with Hamas, a terror group that does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, Abbas is already signaling his readiness to join forces with those who oppose any peace process with Israel. Such an alliance effectively places Abbas on the side of Iran and its Hamas and PIJ proxies.

Abbas and Hamas may renew their relations in the near future, but it will be the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip who will suffer, condemned by their leaders to poverty and misery.

In their response to the “Peace to Prosperity” plan, Palestinian leaders have once again succeeded in what they do best: taking any hope for the wellbeing of their people and driving it straight into the ground.

US President Donald Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity” plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians offers hope to the two million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, which has been ruled by Hamas for more than a decade.

Instead of welcoming the plan, designed to give the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip a prosperous future, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected and denounced it as the “deal of shame” and “slap of the century.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/arab-leaders-support-for-mideast-peace-plan-marks-a-regional-shift-11580325868

BEIRUT—President Trump’s Middle East peace plan has jolted regional dynamics, with Israel preparing to quickly annex West Bank land once expected to be part of a Palestinian state and key Arab leaders tentatively backing the U.S. initiative.

For decades, Arab and Muslim leaders have held fast to the view that any deal with Israel should include a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Palestinian land, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with parts of East Jerusalem as its capital.

While many Middle East leaders still support those goals, officials in Arab capitals have been frustrated by Palestinian leaders’ reluctance to compromise on those points, which has prevented them from strengthening ties with Israel, officials in the region said.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/why-palestinians-rejected-trumps-peace-plan-robert-spencer/

President Trump unveiled his long-awaited “Deal of the Century” plan Tuesday afternoon, offering Palestinians a state and fifty billion dollars. Predictably enough, the Palestinians and their supporters are enraged. The way they have expressed that rage is a new indication of why all peace plans up to now have failed, and why all future plans are doomed to fail.

An Islamic Republic press organ, the Tehran Times, reported that “Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani on Wed., in a letter sent to the Parliament speakers of the Islamic states, urged Islamic countries to counter US-proposed so-called ‘Deal of Century.’”’

According to the Jerusalem Post Tuesday, Islamic State (ISIS) caliph Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi “called on all Muslims worldwide to thwart US President Donald Trump’s peace plan, and added that ‘The Muslims who live in Palestine… will be at the forefront of the fight against the Jews [and] foiling the ‘Deal of the Century.’”

And in Turkey, according to Yeni Şafak, “Turkish demonstrators poured onto streets across the country on Tuesday to protest U.S. President Donald Trump’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan….Many protesters at the rally held placards bearing slogans reading, ‘Jerusalem belongs to Islam.’”

Even before the plan was announced, the official Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on Monday declared that the Palestinian National Council “again expressed its objection to every plan, project, deal, or attempt to harm the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights.” It called upon the PLO to “take all the necessary steps to encourage and escalate the resistance and the struggle against the occupation in all its forms and manners.” Jihad is “struggle” in Arabic.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/01/29/trumps-peace-plan-is-a-rejection-of-obamas-anti-israel-pivot/

Yesterday, President Trump announced his administration’s much-anticipated “Peace to Prosperity” plan, referring to the policy proposal as a “realistic two state solution” to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Accompanying the announcement came a 180-page document, detailing the political aspects of a plan that the administration had remained largely mum on since first announcing its existence last summer.

Despite the hysterics to which we will inevitably be subjected, this plan is an astute return to normalcy after the heretical anti-Israel pivot that had defined the Obama administration’s foreign policy approach in the Middle East. In fact, many of Team Obama’s policy choices involved an abandonment of our traditional allies in the region, combined with an empowerment of our historical adversaries, in an attempt to “rebalance” the Middle East (whatever that nebulous term means).

A statement released from Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) office captured this sentiment well, noting, “Today’s plan marks another important step by the Trump administration to undo the sad legacy of the Obama administration, specifically by rendering United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 null and void, and in doing so, advances the cause of peace in the Middle East.” UNSC Resolution 2334 declared Israeli settlements — or more simply, the presence of Jews — in Judea and Samaria, as well as in East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, to be a “flagrant” violation of international law.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/01/29/new-york-times-downplays-crucial-arab-support-of-trumps-mideast-peace-plan/

In a totally predictable ploy aimed at salvaging the remnants of the Obama foreign policy legacy, the New York Times published a report on Tuesday titled “A Muted Arab Response to Trump’s Mideast Peace Plan.” The caption read, “The U.S. is banking on Arab leaders to help make its plan for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict work. It is not clear how realistic that is.”

The feigned skepticism is a masterful stroke the media often employs in order to project disaster upon a given foreign policy maneuver with little to no evidence. It’s what the national security media did vis-à-vis Iran, the Embassy move to Jerusalem, and now, Trump’s peace plan meant to bring to an end the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. They are never right, and we should stop listening to them. But just how wrong are they? The Jerusalem Post offered a handy list of those who have echoed support of the new plan.

Let’s start with the Saudis. “In light of the announcement, the Kingdom reiterates its support for all efforts aimed at reaching a just and comprehensive resolution to the Palestinian cause,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wrote on Twitter. As the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad Bin Salman told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, “The establishment of a just and comprehensive peace must be worked for.”

https://pjmedia.com/trending/trump-offers-blueprint-for-eventual-conceivable-solution-to-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/

Today, January 28, 2020, President Trump made history by formally announcing a plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace that breaks decisively with the previous, dogmatically upheld paradigm whereby Israel cedes virtually all West Bank land to Palestinian sovereignty, turns its capital Jerusalem into a divided, unmanageable, strife-ridden city, and reduces itself to a nonviable, indefensible entity devoid of strategic depth that is nine miles wide in its heavily populated coastal strip.

For his part, Prime Minister Netanyahu, a leader hailing from the pragmatic right, made history by formally accepting the plan as a basis for negotiations.

The plan does not, in principle, say no to the vaunted two-state solution; it modifies it in a way that could be compatible with Israeli security if the Palestinians were truly seeking accommodation (on which more later). Rather than being a sop to Israel, this plan, like previous ones, asks Israel to cede a lot—namely about 80 percent of the West Bank, the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria. But it does so with important caveats that could make that concession feasible for Israel.