WASHINGTON – January 28, 2020: In the latest confirmation of the Trump administration’s one-sided support for Israeli control and annexation, the President today, alongside evangelical Christians and extremist Jewish Israeli settler leaders, but without any Palestinians, released a so-called “peace plan,” crafted in large part by his son-in-law and already rejected by Palestinians.
At a time when both President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu are ratcheting up their political campaigns, the moribund peace plan is unlikely to yield any results beyond encouraging the extremist Israeli settler movement – and possibly distracting from their election woes. In essence, like the Trump administration itself, the plan is dishonest, inhumane and ineffective.
The 80-page farcical plan proposes that Israeli settlement blocs inside the occupied West Bank would remain under Israeli control; that Jerusalem would be Israel’s “undivided” capital; and that some form of a Palestinian state would also be created, although what level of sovereignty that would entail remains unclear. The plan also includes an economic incentive package, unveiled last year at the Bahrain conference, with an economic carrot-and-stick approach that utterly ignores the reality that the largest obstacles to Palestinian prosperity and economic growth are the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Israeli military siege on Gaza.
Under Trump, the United States has reversed its position and contradicted international law on the illegality of Israeli settlements, the annexation of the Golan Heights and the status of Jerusalem, while cutting massive amounts of humanitarian aid to Palestinians.
Rabbi Alissa Wise, Acting co-Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace, said:
“This is in no way a peace plan—it’s an apartheid plan. It’s a distraction ploy by two warmongerers who are prioritizing their personal election campaigns over any semblance of statecraft. International law, global consensus and decades of U.S. policy concur that Palestinian land isn’t for Trump to give away nor for Netanyahu to steal. The only way forward towards lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians is through justice, freedom and equality for everyone.”
Rabbi Wise is available to speak with the media