By AHMED THARWAT
Jan. 28, 2020: President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel during a ceremony at the White House after the Trump administration’s Mideast peace plan was revealed
Trump and Netanyahu announced the long-awaited Middle East peace plan, coined the deal of the century. Trump the dealmaker, description it, as “ a win-Win” plan for Israel and Palestinians. President Donald Trump has been gloating about his long-awaited Middle East peace plan. The plan he announced last week, and touted as “ a win-win” plan for Israel and the Palestinians, would give Israel most of what it wants. It gives the Palestinian people a death certificate.
This peace plan has no peace in it, or even a plan. It is full of fanfare for two people who are in deep trouble at home and on a suicide mission to divert attention from their personal problems.
Trump is losing political clout amid the impeachment spectacle. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is gasping for survival back home, where he has been charged with bribery, fraud, breach of trust and corruption.
The Middle East has not merely provided America raw materials and oil. It also has been a place where American leaders can divert attention when they are in trouble, a place to launch rockets and bombs — and peace initiatives. It’s been that way since President Richard Nixon dispatched Henry Kissinger on his frenetic mission to the Middle East, which was dubbed “shuttle diplomacy” in the 1970s.
These so-called Middle East peace plans never brought peace to the area — they only brought more land to the apartheid state of Israel and more misery to the Palestinians. With every peace initiative, the map shrunk more for Palestinians, until they have lost most of the land (90%) they called home in 1917.
The peace plan tradition from troubled presidents didn’t stop with Nixon and Kissinger, but was carried on by Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — and now Trump.
Jan. 11, 1974: U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger during a Mideast peace mission under President Richard Nixon. Plans also were pursued by Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
But the Trump plan in particular has taken off the mask, showing plainly what’s been in the making for decades. It ends the Palestinian people’s hopes and aspirations, and instead offers them a sliver of scattered lands on which to build an anemic state surrounded by Jewish settlers and occupation armies. Jared Kushner, senior adviser to the president, says the White House’s Middle East plan is “a great deal” and if Palestinians reject it, “they’re going to screw up another opportunity, like they’ve screwed up every other opportunity that they’ve ever had in their existence.”
This is in keeping with the line attributed to Abba Eban, Israeli foreign minister line a few decades ago: ”The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
This political masturbation shows that Kushner is playing chess with himself, keeping up a long tradition among American leaders who are in trouble at home and couldn’t care less about the Arabs or Palestinians. These so called Middle East peace plans now from Kessinger to Kushner, from the “shuttle diplomacy” mission to the “reading books” mission., Jared Kushner who crafted the Trump peace plan, claimed that he is qualified to this sorts of works because he read 25 books about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict ! as they say, (me) The road to hell is full of books. The only book that Mr. Kushner seems to read is, Middle East for dummies
Meanwhile, we have Netanyahu, who came to lecture Congress to help Trump during the 2016 campaign. Now Trump is returning the favor with a peace plan that is dead on arrival.
The problem in the Middle East now is not so much the occupation of Jerusalem by the Zionist state, but the Zionist agenda’s occupation of Arab capitals like Cairo, Riyadh and Oman, where Arab Zionist leaders like MBS of Saudi Arabia, al-Sissi of Egypt and Zayed of United Arab Emirates have been sleeping with Netanyahu in the dark, quietly pressuring the Palestinians to capitulate. Their shameful acquiescence to the plan is expected, as the New York Times reported:
“Trump announced the plan in an appearance at the White House with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel … . There are ‘many, many countries who want to partake in this,’ he told Mr. Netanyahu, predicting that ‘you are going to have tremendous support from your neighbors and beyond your neighbors.’ ”
The United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, called the plan “a serious initiative that addresses many issues raised over the years.” And Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a muted statement saying that it “appreciates the efforts of President Trump’s administration to develop a comprehensive peace plan.”
Trump’s peace plan is nothing but another Balfour Declaration — more land annexation, and more destruction of the Palestinian dream to live in dignity.
This is not the “two-state solution” for which we have been waiting for so many years. What we have here is the “two-thugs solution.”
Ahmed Tharwat, host and producer of the local Arab American TV show “BelAhdan with Ahmed,” writes for local and international publications. He blogs at Notes From America: www.Ahmediatv.com. Follow him on Twitter: @ahmediaTV.
