Posted on 12/05/2017 1:44:04 PM PST by mairdie
Monday, The New York Times published the Palestinian response to an alleged Saudi peace plan. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly presented it to PLO chief and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas last month.
According to the Times’ report, Mohammed told Abbas he has two months to either accept the Saudi proposal or leave office to make way for a new Palestinian leader who will accept it.
The Palestinians and their European supporters are up in arms about the content of Mohammed’s plan. It reportedly proposes the establishment of limited Palestinian sovereignty over small portions of Judea and Samaria. The Gaza Strip, over which the Palestinians have had full sovereignty since Israel pulled its military forces and civilians out in 2005, would be expanded into the northern Sinai, thus providing economic and territorial viability to the envisioned Palestinian state. While the Palestinians would not receive sovereignty over Jerusalem, they would be able to establish their capital in the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis.
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
Interesting. Though it has not been made public, the plan as rumored may have merit if Trump follows through and announces the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem.
The plan, as rumored, gives Israel full sovereignty over Jerusalem. The Palestinians can put their capital in Abu Dis, the neighboring city. The Palestinian state would include some parts of the West Bank, all of Gaza, and also a large swath of land in North Sinai which is currently Egyptian territory. In theory the “land swaps” would come from Egypt, not from Israeli land.
This type of plan was advanced more than a decade ago during the Bush admin. I forget who it was that pushed it but if it comes to pass then I am sure his name will come back in the news. A plan like this makes a lot of sense because it would ensure that both Israel and the Palestinians will have viable, defensible states. All previous plans going all the way back to 1967 never worked because they were just two sides jockeying for leverage over the other. This plan, if it is pushed by the major power brokers, would break the paradigm of decades.
There should be no wonder why 1000s of diplomats will squirm as they have spent their lives concerned with ideas that cannot work. If this plan is made public and supported by Trump and the Saudis and Egypt, it will cause tons of outcry at first but ultimately achieves the stated goals of 2 states for 2 people. Those who oppose it will be exposed as wanting more war, or the destruction of 1 of the 2 states and people.
Excellent summary.
Egypt should give Sinai to the Palis. That could be their new homeland. They will have a warm water port so they can import/export goods. Plus for Egypt trying to govern Sinai as well as maintain any military presence there is a waste.
What the EU and leftists across the world should do is make the new Pali homeland in Sinai a green homeland. That means no carbon emitting cars nor trucks. In addition, all electricity will come either via the gulfs water supply or by sunlight. Buildings will all have solar panels.
We need someone to test this on. Might as well be the Palis in Sinai.
The Palestinians won’t agree. They demand nothing less than the annihilation of Israel and all Israelis. They’re mad dogs. Hamas and Hezbollah cannot be appeased.
Iran
Excellent summary indeed
Egypt actually offered it. Arafat refused it, then Abbas refused it.
Pali’s have never been interested in a homeland other than Israel.
If you get a moment try to watch the Saban interview with Jared Kushner. Jared really didn’t divulge a whole lot but he did make a few points which should be obvious.
The world is a different place now than it was even just a decade ago, let alone decades ago. All these conflicts are old and really nobody is helping themselves by holding these old grudges. Today the Saudis need to diversify their economy. They need to keep Iran in check. They don’t need a conflict with Israel as a thorn in their side - in fact they would benefit from allying with Israel to defeat ISIS and stop Iranian hegemony over Syria and Lebanon.
All these countries - and none more than the Palestinians - would benefit from good relations with Israel. Economically Israel is 4x-20x larger than some of these places. The poor cannot trade their way to prosperity with other poor people! They need to open up trade with Israel, not just trading goods but trading technology - nobody knows better than Israel how to turn the desert into farmland. Israel has incredible desalination technology. And on and on.
One thing that may not have changed in 5000 years - Israel is the crossroads of the region. From the far east to Africa, from India to the Mediterranean the silk roads lead through Israel. Israeli gas pipelines are coming on, and moving an oil pipeline from Saudi most sense moving through the stable countries of Jordan and Israel than any other route.
So if the goal is to end the conflict and resettle the Palestinian refugees into a homeland - 99% of whom have never lived in Israel anyway - then why do they need to argue about slices of the Negev desert if they can make a deal that would include land from Sinai, or even Jordan? Get them a country, get them to give up the nonsensical idea of destroying Israel, and the world can move on.
Trump is being opposed by so many - he may turn out to be one of the greatest presidents of all time. They accuse him of being simple and linear, but it seems to me he is a very good non-linear thinker and willing to think outside the box. He has to live with the politics he has inherited but he doesn’t have to follow the folly of past policy. The Obama-Iran deal was absolutely wretched (and Trump said so all along, as a candidate and as POTUS). He may be exploiting the Saudi/GCC fears of Iranian hegemony to cut a major break in this generational conflict and I hope he can pull it off.
There is a lot more to this as well. Egypt recently gave / “sold” 2 islands to Saudi Arabia in return for billions in investment. Egypt really needs a lot of cash, and they could be convinced to cede 2000 square miles of Sinai land to expand Gaza into the main Palestinian state - in return of course for investment and security.
Also of note is the pressure on Qatar. Qatar had been the major supporter of Hamas. As of this moment, Hamas is nearly broken financially and they have always used cash as the means to muster support from the people. They are losing both. Meanwhile Abbas is being pressured and the rumors are that he has been frantically calling world leaders to find support to oppose Trump but has found none.
Trump was in Saudi Arabia a few months ago, and led a summit of 54 of the Muslim countries. He asked for their support and he may be getting it now. Also of note is that the world has been very quiet at the Saudi Crown Prince’s actions to round up his country’s billionaires and detain them, reportedly torture them, and take billions of dollars of some of them in return for their freedom. He is literally shaking them down, and we are quiet about it. Why? Possibly part of a larger quid pro quo, or possibly he knows he can get away with this because we want some other important cooperation from him. We could be seeing the end game of all these seemingly unrelated events come to being.
>>We could be seeing the end game of all these seemingly unrelated events come to being.
Incredibly exciting.
Shortly after the large celebrations in Western capital on solving the ‘Palestinian Problem’, the new state of Palestine began the large scale construction of military bases in the Sinai under the guidance of Iranian major general Soleimani and his al-qods forces manning the bases. Massive imported heavy weapons and long range missiles from Iran and Russia arrived daily ...
That would be a rather small nearby area to launch an offensive from (hint: square root of total square miles).
Israel’s defenses are pretty tight and always being improved.
There’s a story thread I’d prefer not to follow. Horrible thought.
“That would be a rather small nearby area to launch an offensive from ...”
One direction Sinai: Palestinian and al-Qods detachments, two direction Golan: Iranian, Syrian, and other Syrian based allies, three directions Lebanon: Hezbollah, four directions Gaza: Hamas, five directions: Iraq-Iran combined Shia militias and regular Iranian forces. Is that big enough?
Prince Alwaleed was recently reported to have been arrested. He’s the one that tried to put all the American independent drillers using hydraulic fracturing (frackers) out of business by dumping massive amounts of OPEC oil into the oil markets. It didn’t work.
I suspect when President Trump met with the Saudis, he told them the game was over. Now they’re so friendly.
Art of the Deal.
If you'd like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Another DOA peace plan. You can't make a treaty with an illegitimate government. Which is what a government with a President in what, the tenth year of his four year term. Anything agreed to can be reneged, on pretty good grounds.
Now just a cotton pickin’ minit here. Let’s be fair. The PA can just hold elections, and the newly elected Hamas-member President will be more than agreeable to this proposal. After all, who wants never-ending war. Heh. It’s not reasonable, so since everybody’s reasonable, nobody does. Heh. Of course. Right? Right.
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