A long-awaited Middle East peace plan, set to be unveiled on Tuesday by US President Donald Trump, will recognize Israel's right to stay in the West Bank and extend its sovereignty to large and strategically important chunks of the territory that Palestinians claim for the state of their own, Israeli analysts told Sputnik
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th January, 2020) A long-awaited Middle East peace plan, set to be unveiled on Tuesday by US President Donald Trump, will recognize Israel's right to stay in the West Bank and extend its sovereignty to large and strategically important chunks of the territory that Palestinians claim for the state of their own, Israeli analysts told Sputnik.
No details were disclosed on Monday as Trump was discussing his "deal of the century" with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country's opposition leader Benny Gantz, both invited to the White House for separate closed-door meetings.
"If we are to single out specific things, that I think will appear [in the plan], it will be a confirmation of Israel's right to Judea and Samaria, incorrectly referred to as the West Bank, confirmation by the United States that all Jewish settlements there are just as legitimate as the Arab ones," Ariel Bulstein, an adviser to Netanyahu, told Sputnik. "This is certainly the key step, the major component that I want to hear tomorrow. I do expect to hear it."
Former member of Knesset Ksenia Svetlova said she expected the deal to offer Israelis far more than they had ever hoped to gain and leave the Palestinians with what she described as "state minus."
"The state without control over its borders, without the army, with the territory bitten off by Israel - not settlement blocks alone, but also roads leading there and land for them to expand," she explained.
Now a Research Fellow at the Israeli Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, she belonged to the influential center-left Zionist Union Party and for four consecutive years, until early 2019, served as a member of parliamentary opposition to right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, attacking him for reneging on the peace process with the Palestinians.
The initiative, in the works since the early days of Trump's presidency, will address a set of issues, pivotal for Israel-Palestinian peace process, including permanent borders, the status of Jerusalem and Jewish settlements, the future of Arab refugees, and security arrangements.
Svetlova tends to trust media leaks, suggesting that Trump would allow Israel to retain 30-40 strategically located percent of the West Bank and continue to effectively govern the whole of Jerusalem.
"It gives Israelis more than they ever hoped to get from the American administration. Where is the 'roadmap' here, where is the Obama plan, where are the Clinton parameters? Not even close," she said, referring to previous US initiatives based on the two-state, negotiation-based solution. "Much more than Israelis hoped for, much less than Palestinians counted on."
Bulstein refuses to describe the plan as a green light for the annexation, claiming that the territory in question has never been legally owned by anyone. He admits, however, the deal would entail the extension of Israeli jurisdiction and sovereignty over it.
"Yes, apparently, there will be an understanding that this is absolutely legal, correct, consistent with ethical standards and historical Israeli rights," he said.
The Palestinian leaders, conspicuously absent in Washington, are expected to convene on an emergency meeting on Tuesday to formulate a response, according to their Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. It remains unclear if the plan, seen as a prelude for a broader reconciliation between Israel and Arab nations, can be implemented without their backing.
Palestinians have repeatedly rejected Trump's mediation efforts, accusing him of pro-Israel bias as he recognized Jerusalem as Israeli capital and relocated the American embassy to the contested city, cut off financial aid to the Palestinian administration, closed its embassy in Washington and announced that dozens of settlements, home to hundreds of thousands of Israelis in the West Bank and Jerusalem, were no longer deemed illegal.
