President Trump termed it as “Deal of the Century”, but was rejected immediately as it is irrational and based on injustice. The Peace Plan was prepared after close consultations with Israel and ignoring the Palestinians.
The plan was authored by a team led by Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner. Both the West Bank settlers’ Yesha Council and the Palestinian leadership rejected the plan: the former – because it envisaged a Palestinian state, the latter – arguing it is too biased in favor of Israel. The plan is divided into two parts, an economic portion, and a political portion. On June 22, 2019, the Trump administration released the economic portion of the plan, titled “Peace to Prosperity”. The political portion was released in late January 2020.
During the press conference announcing the plan, Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the Israeli government would immediately annex the Jordan Valley and West Bank settlements while committing not to create new settlements in areas left to the Palestinians for at least four years. US Ambassador to Israel David M. Friedman claimed that the Trump administration had given permission for an immediate annexation, stating that “Israel does not have to wait at all” and “we will recognize it.” The Likud spokesman tweeted that Israeli sovereignty over settlements would be declared on the following Sunday.
The peace plan lacks consultation with Palestinians, regional countries and international powers. It is the Trump Administrations’ style that he makes a decision without necessary consultations and consensus. Recently there are also few other incidents which became a failure and embarrassing situation for the US, like Assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, where President Trump by-passed Congress and has not bothered NATO allies or regional allies. In the end, have faced a lot of criticism and embarrassment. Scraping the Nuclear deal with Iran was also a decision that lacked consultation and consensus-building. President Trump took the decision after having a PowerPoint presentation from Israel while ignoring Congress and other signatories of the deal.
His Middle-East Peace Plan also lacks consultations as well as consensus. The plan was only favoring Israel, where Israel will get recognition and more land, while Palestinians will lose its territory against meager economic benefits.
The Palestinian leadership rejected the peace plan immediately. Organization of Islamic Cooperation, representative of around 2 billion Muslims, 57 Muslim countries, which owns more than half of the natural resources, especially the Energy (Oil & Gas), the largest organization after the United Nation, has also rejected the Trump’s deal of the Century.
It is worth mentioning that state of Israel was created illegally after the World War II, as a result of “The Balfour Declaration” a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population. The proposal was subsequently endorsed by the League of Nations as part of the partitioning of the Ottoman lands. In 1917, Jews constituted less than 8% of the population; by 1947, they comprised about a third of the population, while owning just 7% of the land. That year the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan, which allotted 56% of the land to the Jewish population illegally, but it was rejected by the Arab nations. Hostilities broke out between the two sides, later developing into full-scale invasion by several of the neighboring Arab states following Israel’s declaration of independence. By the time hostilities had concluded, Israel was in control of 78% of Mandatory Palestine, and much of the local Arab populace were either expelled or fled. The precise number of Palestinian refugees—usually thought to lie somewhere between the contemporary Israeli figure of 500,000 and the UNRPR estimate of 910,000—many of whom settled in refugee camps in neighboring states, is a matter of dispute, but around 80 percent of the Arab inhabitants of what became Israel, either fled or were expelled from their homes forcefully. The West Bank and Gaza were captured and occupied during the 1967 Six-Day War. Shortly after the 1967 war, Israel began building settlements in the land, in violation of international law.
United Nation Security Council (UNSC) passed several resolutions to settle the Arab-Israel issue, but Israel never implemented. Several Peace initiatives were proposed in the past but all of them were failed to resolve this serious issue. The real solution is that the International community may come forward to force Israel to implement the UNSC resolutions in its true spirit. Anything less than UNSC resolutions, may not be accepted by Palestine.
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