Published: 31 January 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Judgment of the plan within each of Israel’s opposing political camps hinges on the following question: Is the Trump administration sincere in implementing a far-reaching, detailed peace deal with the eventual consent of the Palestinians, or is the plan nothing but an elaborate wink to the Israelis to get on with annexing significant chunks of the West Bank unilaterally, under the guise of diplomacy and multilateralism?
“We are at a historic moment for the state of Israel,” tweeted Ayelet Shaked, a former justice minister and chairperson of the New Right party. “The Israeli government should immediately extend its sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and Judea and Samaria.
“The dangerous part of the plan, meaning the establishment of a Palestinian state or recognition of one, won’t happen.”
Transportation Minister Bezalel Smotrich began his Facebook post on the deal with a quote from Psalm 126, glorifying the return of the Babylonian exiles to Zion. The redemption of Israel, he opined, comes gradually; with “light and dark mixed together.”
But despite the “bad and dangerous” parts of the deal, Smotrich was optimistic: “As far as we’re concerned it’s (Israeli) sovereignty (over the West Bank) now, an Arab state never.”
Amit Segal, the political commentator of Channel 12 news and a native of the settlement of Ofra, was equally ecstatic. “The historic change that took place this evening at the White House can be summarszed by one sentence: up until today, Israel gave territories and received words, and from today it receives territories and gives words.”
“No Palestinian state will be established as a result of the Deal of the Century,” Segal continued. “Since it’s not us, it’s them: those who rejected the Peel Committee’s (first partition plan – E.M.) in 1937 […] will never accept the diluted proposal they received this evening.”
But some on the ideological right insisted on taking Trump’s plan at face value.
“This evening is a clash between the ideological right and the pragmatic right,” tweeted Itamar Ben Gvir, a leader in the far right Otzma Yehudit party. “The pragmatists see a wonderful opportunity, because what do they care about handing over 70% of Judea and Samaria and establish a state for them, when the Palestinian Authority exists now anyway, and the other settlements are legitimised.
“The ideologues view the deal as a terrible mistake: handing over territories from our motherland is a betrayal of Eretz Israel. We’re proud to choose the ideological side!”
On the left, too, reactions ranged from historic to hysteric. Those who take the plan seriously have issued urgent calls to action, while other pundits view the plan as an ironic, belated, recognition of the Oslo Accord principles.
“If it looks like apartheid, walks like apartheid and quacks like apartheid, you’ve probably seen Trump’s peace plan,” tweeted Hagit Ofran, head of the settlement monitoring department of Peace Now.
Another Israeli grassroots peace organisation, Standing Together, announced an anti-annexation demonstration in Tel Aviv under the banner “this is not a false alarm”.
But Gilead Sher, an attorney and former peace negotiator under Ehud Barak, wrote that Trump’s peace deal is simply the latest incarnation of the much-derided Oslo Peace Accords.
"’Oslo III’ adequately captions Trump's deal,” Sher tweeted on Tuesday evening. “Capitalising on the 1978 Israel-Egypt peace framework which laid the foundations to Palestinian autonomy, the 1993 and 1995 Oslo I & II respectively, Trump just pushes the two-state envelope further on the account of the Palestinians.”
The coming days and weeks will shed more light on Trump’s true intentions, adding credence to either the skeptics or the enthusiasts. Meanwhile, the plan will no doubt feature front and centre in Israel’s previously drowsy third election campaign this year.
READ MORE
The Trump plan could indeed prove historic – for all the wrong reasons (Times of Israel)
AVI ISSACHAROFF: The ‘Deal of the Century’ has united the Palestinian in opposition, and if Israel annexes West Bank territory, it could be remembered as the trigger for a third intifada
Photo: Financial Times
