RUTHFULLY YOURS

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.