The White House and the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are calling it the ‘Deal of the Century,’ but for Palestinians living under Israel’s military occupation and brutal apartheid system,
In so many ways, the deal attempts to rewrite 75 years of history, leaving Palestinians even less than ‘back to square one.’ For native Arabs in the region, the Trump’s Administration’s deal is a raw one – which continues to violate the rights of millions of innocent people trapped in an impossible modern colonial project.
According to many Palestinian rights advocates, the deal effectively bypasses international legal barriers and ignores Palestinians’ right to freedom and self-determination. In short, it looks to make apartheid an official policy of both Israel and its backers in Washington. In what looks like an one-sided ultimatum, President Trump’s son-in-law and architect of the deal, Jared Kushner (Pictured above), is now telling Palestinian refugees they are not refugees after all.
In a special meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced he his anger over the deal and said he would be cutting diplomatic ties with both Israel and the United States.
Bel Trew from The Independent reports….
To rapturous applause on Tuesday, Donald Trump and his close friend, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, launched what they described as “the opportunity of a century” to fix one of the trickiest conflicts of our time.
The UK, the EU, Egypt and most of the Gulf states made noises of commendation, saying the 181-page peace plan was a workable starting point to jump-start long-dead negotiations.
But the fractured Palestinian leadership, in a rare moment of unity, condemned it as “nonsense” and a “conspiracy”. Israeli human rights groups, meanwhile, said that rather than building peace it “delivered apartheid“. One said it was as “detached from reality as it was eye-catching”.
So which is it?
This sprawling document, which has polarised opinion so dramatically, is almost bizarrely detailed in some respects. At one point, 100 pages in, it allocates funds for specific year-long Palestinian internships abroad.
SEE ALSO: Trump & Sons: Kushner’s ‘Deal of Century’ – Bribing Palestinians to Go Away
At other intervals, however, it sweeps vaguely through some of the rawest issues at the centre of the conflict, such as what to do about the more than five million registered Palestinian refugees scattered across the globe who have, for decades, kept the right to return home so close to their hearts.
Few would, however, disagree with the idea that it is the most pro-Israeli vision for a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to come out of the White House.
It states that Jerusalem will be the undivided capital of Israel and that Israel can annex the Jordan Valley and nearly all its settlements in the occupied West Bank, although they are illegal under international law.
There will be land swaps and a cap on settlement expansion, but otherwise it appears to answer most of the key Israeli demands.
This is why Mr Netanyahu agreed to sign the document and called it the “best plan for Israel and the best plan for peace”. But it is also why it is doomed to remain just a “vision” – the Palestinians have roundly rejected it…
Continue this story at The Independent
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