Awaited for days, US President Donald Trump has proclaimed his “Middle East Peace Plan.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alone was at his side as Trump announced this agreement that professes to find a solution to the Israel-Palestine problem and which he thus calls the “Deal of the Century.” However, it would be most frivolous to call this plan a unilateral plan premised on this because the plan Trump has announced is imbued with a significance and meaning that far transcends a plan unilaterally imposed on Palestine.
Let us first start with the content of the plan.
In the eyes of the world, Trump has long since merited the title of one of the most aggressive leaders towards Palestine in history. So, the plan he announced was the kind of “peace plan” that was going to come from a leader who boasts of transferring the US Embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan heights. In fact, Netanyahu made things abundantly clear with his praise for Trump by saying, “You were the first leader to recognize our vital territory.”
Per this plan, a “mini-state” named “New Palestine” is to be established in the occupied West Bank apart from Jewish settlements and the Gaza Strip. Jerusalem will remain in Israel’s hands and be accepted as the capital, but East Jerusalem will also be the capital of the Palestinian mini-state. However, since Jerusalem will remain in Israel’s hands, having East Jerusalem as its capital will be of purely symbolic value for Palestine!
With promises of investments and work, Trump is reckoning on securing approval for this plan of the Palestinians, who try to keep their lives going under harsh conditions of siege. As per this plan, the Palestinians will attain prosperity with fifty billion dollars in investments encompassing Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon as well as the West Bank and Gazza! Even if the Trump administration calls this “peace for prosperity,” surrender is basically being foisted on the Palestinians in return for work and bread. Put crudely, it is wished to chasten the Palestinians through hunger. To this end, a “Peace for Prosperity Workshop” was held in the Bahraini city of Manama; Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Egypt attended this workshop, which the Palestinian Administration refused to do.
Announcing his plan, Trump, in saying, “If Palestine rejects terrorism it will be recognized as a state,” adopted an egregiously aggressive position towards Palestine even while announcing his “Peace Plan” and also told the governments of Arab countries that, “The time has come to recognize Israel.”
Hence, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, speaking after Trump, was perfectly justified in saying of this plan that it “recalls 1948 (the founding of the state of Israel).”
In his comments, Trump recalled the assassination of “Quds Force Commander” Qasem Soleimani the US staged in Baghdad and blatantly set his sights on Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah, describing them as “security-threatening forces.”
Thanking Bahrain and the UAE which had sent ambassadors to Trump’s announcement, he gave indication of the basic aim underlying the “Deal of the Century” in proclaiming Iran and Hezbollah to be threats to Middle Eastern security.
This is because, by declaring Iran to be the prime threat and implementing the strategy of “besieging Iran,” the US is trying to prevent its most important rivals Russia and China from gaining clout in the region. To this end, it has drawn up a plan named the “Middle Eastern Strategic Alliance” so as to unite the Sunni Arab regimes in the Gulf which view Iran as an enemy around its strategy and has mooted the establishing within this plan of a Sunni Arab (NATO-like) force with the participation of Egypt and Jordan along with the six Gulf countries. After all, faced with increased Iranian influence in the region, these regimes see salvation in the US strategy.
In speaking of strong support for the plan he announced together with Netanyahu, Trump was most probably speaking of these regimes that have long since been ready to jettison the Palestinian problem and reach agreement with Israel, because Trump is trying with the plan he has called the “Middle East Peace Plan” to remove the hindrance of the Palestinian problem to cooperation between the US-collaborator Sunni Arab regimes and Israel. He thereby wishes both to ensure Israel’s security and to stem the weakening of his hegemony in the region (Middle East) by assembling the Arab regimes headed by the Gulf countries and Israel around his own strategy.
To sum up:
The plan Trump calls the “Middle East Peace Plan” or “Deal of the Century” can be considered to be the final stage of the policy having its inception in the 1917 Balfour Declaration by means of which British imperialism declared the aim of setting up a Jewish state in Palestine and its continuation with the establishing of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent post-1967 occupations. This “peace” essentially rests on Palestine renouncing all its legitimate rights in opposition to Israeli occupation and consenting to be a symbolic state. In other words, the aim is to legitimise and lend permanence to Israel occupation and aggression.
On the other hand, one of the calculations in this plan is, tapping the hostility towards Iran of Sunni Arab regimes like Jordan and Egypt, for these regimes to apply pressure to secure Palestine’s consent to the surrender agreement. In fact, the participation by Arab ambassadors at Trump and Netanyahu’s announcement shows that the regimes in question have long since been ready for this task because, as I have already stated, imposing this plan on Palestine appears necessary to remove the hindrance of the Palestinian problem to these regimes and Israel assembling around the US’s strategy of besieging Iran.
As such, let me say in conclusion: Even if it bears the name of “peace,” the plan Trump has announced amounts to a plan of surrender for Palestine and of a new war for the Middle East!
(Translated by Tim DRAYTON)
Yusuf Karadaş
Ceren Sözeri
Aras Coşkuntuncel