Published: 20 September 2018
Last updated: 4 March 2024
This week marks the 40th anniversary of the Camp David accords — the high-water mark of Middle East peacemaking. How far we have fallen since then. It makes you weep. Without some dramatic advance, there is a real chance that whatever Palestinian governance exists will crumble, and Israel will have to take full responsibility for the health, education and welfare of the 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank.
Israel would then have to decide whether to govern the West Bank with one legal authority or two, which would mean Israel would be choosing between bi-nationalism and apartheid.
The Trump team keeps saying that it wants to get America’s Arab allies to endorse its peace plan. Mahmoud Abbas should go to America’s four key Arab allies — Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — and propose that they collectively say “yes” to engaging Trump and Kushner if the US plan includes two criteria.
It calls for a contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank — not a bunch of disconnected cantons — and it grants Palestinians some form of sovereignty in predominantly Arab East Jerusalem.
If the Trump team embraced such an initiative, it would also force Netanyahu to make some decisions. He would have to either reject it — exposing his real position — or jettison some of his far-right political supporters and form a new government prepared to negotiate on the US terms. He could definitely do the latter — if he wanted.
FULL STORY The broken pieces of Middle East peace (NYT)
In world turned upside down, Israel angry at Abbas for taking hard line on Hamas (Times of Israel)
AVI ISSACHAROFF Government hopes for tranquility are based on a delusional misconception — trying for a deal with terror group Hamas, while slamming PA leader whose security cooperation is vital
Photo: Jared Kushner and Abbas (Reuters)
