This is what the West Bank looks like today. There is no integral Palestinian territory left. Roughly 500,000 Israelis live in these fortified settlements, considering it a badge of honor. They have no right to be here, based on UN resolutions, but Bibi Netanyahu has made it his mission to annex Palestine piece by piece until there will be virtually nothing left. Obama did little to curb this development during his eight years in office.
Along comes Trump, or one should say his creepy son-in-law Jared, with a so-called peace plan that would allow Israel to formally annex all these enclaves, leaving Palestine to figure out what to do with the remainder. So confident is he of his plan that he has called it the "Deal of the Century." However, anyone looking at the plan can only marvel at the cynicism that resulted in it. Palestine is virtually landlocked with only a little sliver of a border with Jordan. How on earth can it hope to survive as a nation state on a patch of land like this?
The answer, of course, is that they aren't expected to. Palestinians will forever remain a ward of Israel, with home rule over their remaining territory. Our neglect for the past 20 years allowed this to happen. We became too pre-occupied with the wars in the Middle East to care about the fate of the Palestinian people, even if Jared callously suggested they "screwed up."
Christiane Amanpour gave the whiny-voiced Jared every opportunity to defend this indefensible plan in the 20-minute interview. It is virtually impossible to listen to the whole thing, given the stunning display of arrogance and ignorance on Jared's part, with Amanpour offering little resistance. Any time she questioned him on his plan, he would reject her criticisms, and ramble on with his real estate spiel. Of course, this is what you would expect from a bogus real estate developer, whose only claim to fame is marrying into the Trump family.
This plan is nothing more than a publicity stunt designed to get Bibi Netanyahu over the top in the third national legislative election within a year. Neither he nor Benny Gantz has been able to secure a majority in the Knesset. It doesn't matter that this plan isn't worth the paper it is printed on. The hope is that it will generate just enough attention to get Bibi a few more crossover votes and the 61 seats he needs to continue to rule Israel with an iron fist. Netanyahu has a deeply personal interest in all this, as he faces indictment charges over fraud and corruption if he is not able to hang onto the Prime Minister's seat.
The deal Trump put forward yesterday is the kind of deal a mafia don would offer someone who has little choice in the matter. There is nothing ennobling about this deal, nothing that would make anyone other than his tight inner circle proud of this so-called accomplishment, nothing that gives us any hope that the deep divisions between Israel and Palestine and the greater Arab world have been resolved in any meaningful sense. It is all about exercising naked power.
The one advantage Trump has is that no one saw it coming. We had heard about this plan for years. Jared had supposedly invested all his energy into it, and met with various players in the region, but no one expected it to be unveiled like this. Trump literally pulled this plan out of his ass, which I guess is where Jared has been hiding all these months, in an effort to draw attention away from the Senate trial that gained a bit of drama when excerpts from John Bolton's forthcoming book were leaked.
Of course, Trump's deal will face scrutiny, but not from Tony Blair, who was on BBC last night asking us to consider this shameless plan. He's been angling for a special envoy position for three years, desperate to get back in the thick of things. You never know when this guy will reappear on television. He's like a little gnome.
No one stands up for Palestinians anymore. They have become a forgotten stateless people with virtually no say in matters that concern what's left of their occupied territories. Those who do stand up for the Palestinians are consigned to the fringes.
Remember when Jimmy Carter called Israel's policy toward Palestine worse than apartheid? He was roundly dismissed by the media, but here we are 14 years later, and Palestine looks exactly like the "Bantustans" South Africa carved out of its country to give the local tribes very nominal home rule. In an incredibly callous move, Trump has legitimized this process and Palestinians are supposed to say "thank you."
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