In this Monday, Feb. 10, 2020 photo, a woman walks in the Israeli settlement of Mevo’ot Yericho, in the Jordan Valley near the Palestinian city of Jericho. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Posted on 09/10/2020 7:58:52 AM PDT by SJackson
Trump adviser warns Palestinians that if they continue to reject Trump peace proposal ‘the situation is just going to get worse and worse for them’; says US won’t ‘chase’ Ramallah
NEW YORK — Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner said on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s peace plan is an attempt to “save the two state solution” because it stops Israel from further expanding its presence in the West Bank.
“The reality today is that a lot of this land is inhabited with Israelis,” Kushner told reporters during a phone briefing ahead of the White House signing next week of the Israel-UAE normalization deal.
During the call, Kushner, who was extolling the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape the Middle East, was asked about the Palestinians appearing to be left behind.
Kushner said the Trump plan presented in January this year was still on the table even though it had been rejected by the Palestinians, and that it provides them with their best hope of stopping continued Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War.
“What we did with our plan was we were trying to save the two-state solution, because… if we kept going with the status quo… ultimately, Israel would have eaten up all the land in the West Bank,” Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser specified. The comments mark some of the most specific the Trump administration has made at odds with Israel’s expanding settlement enterprise.
The US plan would grant the Palestinians a state with restricted sovereignty in Gaza and in most of the West Bank, with additional land swaps from inside Israel, while allowing Israel to annex some 30 percent of the West Bank including all its settlements and the Jordan Valley, and to keep nearly all of East Jerusalem.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has campaigned since 2019 on a plan to annex parts of the West Bank, the Biblical Judea and Samaria, in coordination with the Trump administration. But the administration gave mixed signals about the idea in recent months, and the suspension of unilateral annexation plan was one of the main stated conditions of the August 13 Israel-UAE normalization agreement. Netanyahu has insisted annexation remains “on the table.”
Kushner said that while the Trump peace plan allows Israel to maintain roughly 30% of the West Bank, the semi-contiguous territory that remains is enough for the Palestinian Authority to turn into a state.
“And so, right now, you have a situation where there is land that could become a Palestinian state. It is possible to connect it, but the land that Israeli settlers are in right now is land that Israel controls, and the odds of them ever giving it up is unlikely,” Kushner said, adding that any plan that ignored this reality was destined to fail.
Kushner also told the Palestinians that it was up to them to come to the table to negotiate and that the US would not “chase” them, warning that if they continue to reject the plan, their situation would likely only get worse.
“My fear for the Palestinians is that if they do what they’re very good at doing, which is figure out how to not make a deal and play the victim card, then what’s going to happen is, you know, more time is going to go by and the situation is just going to get worse and worse for them,” he said.
Kushner said the Trump plan aimed to break the failed paradigms of previous peace plans. “The reason why they never accomplished anything was because both parties were getting what they wanted.
“Every time a negotiation failed, Israel took more land and the Palestinians got more money from the international community.”
On Sunday, Hebrew media reported that Defense Minister Benny Gantz is working to advance 5,000 settlement homes through various planning stages. Settler leaders claimed the government had imposed a de-facto building freeze due to regional developments, such as the normalization agreement with UAE.
That deal saw Netanyahu agree to suspend plans to annex those parts of the West Bank that the Trump plan envisions being included in Israel. However, the premier has insisted that the compromise is temporary and that he has not removed annexation from his agenda.
Also during Wednesday’s phone briefing, Kushner highlighted his achievement in convincing the Israeli government to agree to the US presenting a map of the West Bank on which Jerusalem would be willing to negotiate.
“In the first meetings with [PA] President Abbas, he said, ‘If you could get Israel to agree to a map, then the rest will be easy to figure out.’ We did better than that: We got them [the Israelis] to agree to a state with a map,” Kushner said.
Netanyahu has said he does not call what the Palestinians are being offered in the peace plan a “state,” but has no issue with the Trump administration labeling the territory as such.
The Palestinians see the West Bank as the heartland of a future independent state and East Jerusalem as their capital. Most of the international community supports their position, but Trump has reversed decades of US foreign policy by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the American Embassy there. He’s also closed Palestinian diplomatic offices in Washington and cut funding to Palestinian aid programs.
Abbas has rejected the Trump plan and refused to engage with the administration over it, castigated the UAE for its deal with Israel, and in recent weeks deepened his contacts with the Gaza-ruling Islamist terror group Hamas.
Israel’s start as a nation was preceded by Jews buying up the land like crazy. That’s the legal way to do it. :)
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Another generous offer the palestinians refuse to discuss. Their way or the highway.
Those naughty Jews are turning the desert into a garden too fast.
There never was a government, king, president of that area the Romans named Palestine after the Jews hated enemy the Philistines.
Straight out of Trump’s Art of the Deal.
When dealing with Trump - knowing "The Art of the Deal" - here is a little something to keep in mind - and unfortunately MOST PEOPLE on this site don't - Trump said this in TAOTD: "The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people's fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That's why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It's an innocent form of exaggeration and a very effective form of promotion."
This is the KEY to understanding why Trump Tweets and says MOST THINGS. YOU (and MOST of FR) "want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular." - SO he gives it to you - and time after time it doesn't happen and then he gives you something else and you get geeked up about that - and the cycle repeats.
This quote is straight from TAOTD. It defines his presidency.
Why is Jericho a “Palestinian” city, I wonder.
The TAOTD also said “Deliver the goods”
Deliver the Goods”
“You can’t con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don’t deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on ... I’d never understood how Jimmy Carter became president. The answer is that as poorly qualified as he was for the job, Jimmy Carter had the nerve, the guts, the balls, to ask for something extraordinary. That ability above all helped him get elected president. But, then, of course, the American people caught on pretty quickly that Carter couldn’t do the job, and he lost in a landslide when he ran for reelection.”
Tell us Jared how can you have peace with a culture who has consistently vowed over and over to do everything they can to wipe you from the face of the earth? Stupid is as stupid does Jared and you fit the description.
Probably can’t under current leadership. But you make the offer consistent with US/Trump policy, a 2 state solution. As 2 Bushes, Clinton and Obama did. The Trump difference, after rejection, you face reality and move on in the region. Move your embassy to the capital. Encourage regional relationships. If it leaves the palestinians behind, that’s their choice. The Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama tactic would be to increasingly pressure Israel rather than face the reality that the only state the palestinians want is Israe.
Don’t know. How about Hebron. Bethlehem.
The deal is on the table. If the Pali’s don’t take it and lose everything, who’s fault is that?
Jared is in way over his naive liberal head. To even discuss giving these ragged murderous squatters recognition as a “state” is to grant them way too much recognition. They have proven over and over again, beyond any shadow of any doubt, that they are incapable of living in peace, that they have no desire to do so, that they poison their childrens’ minds from birth. Their national “product” is death and injury. They would only use their “state” as a base to launch further attacks. Why should their perfidious ways be rewarded?
“Israel’s start as a reincarnated modern nation was preceded by Jews buying up the land like crazy from muslims who stole it from Romans who stole it from Jews.”
/fixed it
WTF is this alleged Jew Kushner blathering about? All I see is a word salad.
“Tell us Jared how can you have peace with a culture who has consistently vowed over and over to do everything they can to wipe you from the face of the earth?”
Like the Imperial Japanese, the Ottoman Empire, or Soviet Communism?
You give them new leadership - a new political system. People are people all over the Earth. The Palestinian population (although highly indoctrinated) are hostage to the violent gangs who have consolidated power over them. It is those gangs, and their ideology, that is the problem.
Yep.
“All I see is a word salad.”
...and a peace deal with the UAE (the economic dynamo of the Gulf), and likely a string of other muslim countries over the coming weeks. Sudan, Chad, Kosovo, Bahrain, Oman...
...Maybe even Qatar (which could mark the end of their sponsorship of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose local chapter in Israel is Hamas), and/or Saudi Arabia.
Call it a “State” in the sales brochures/press releases, but structure it like an Indian Reservation - no Military, no foreign policy, no currency, etc..
It has to sound like a win for the Arab side, to provide political cover for the oil sheiks to finally withdraw their support in a face-saving way.
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