Trump’s ME plan reeks of pro-Israeli bias

If there has been one consistency on the part of US President Donald Trump, it has been his pro-Israeli bias.

The presenting of his long-awaited Mideast peace plan by Trump standing alongside a beaming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and in the absence of prominent Palestinian leaders offers a cue about blatant favouritism.

Decades of sacrifice and struggle by Palestinians cannot and should not be written off with unreasonable offers.

No wonder, Palestinians are enraged, which was reflected in the angry words of President Mahmoud Abbas, who stated, “After the nonsense that we heard today we say a thousand no’s to the Deal of The Century.”

Trump’s plan for ending the conflict paves the way for Israel to annex most or all of its settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The international community has always accepted the view that Israeli settlements are illegal and main obstacle to resolving the conflict as they make the establishment of a contiguous, viable Palestinian state virtually impossible.

The International Criminal Court is also soon expected to investigate the settlements as part of a broader probe into violations of international law in the Palestinian territories.

For decades, the US itself viewed the settlements as inconsistent with international law, but Trump reversed that policy last year.

It is common knowledge that his Mideast peace team includes prominent supporters of the settlements, and his plan allows Israel to annex major settlement blocs.

Trump’s initiative grants the Jewish state full control of occupied Jerusalem and allows it to annex the Jordan Valley, a strategic area of the West Bank, as well as the settlements that dot the Palestinian territory.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, are being offered a form of statehood in what remains of the West Bank and Gaza.

There has been a pattern in Washington’s prejudiced moves in favour of Israel. The halting of funds to the UNRWA, recognising occupied Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, relocating US embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem, refusing to restrain Israel from illegally expanding settlements are just a few among such moves hostile to the Palestinians.

Trump’s plan does envisage a Palestinian state, but demilitarised and with borders drawn to meet Israel’s security needs. It accords US recognition of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which almost the entire world considers illegal.

As per Trump’s plan, Israel would maintain “overriding security responsibility for the State of Palestine”, including at the Palestinian state’s international border crossings.

Zoning and planning in border areas between Israel and Palestine “will be subject to the State of Israel’s overriding security responsibility”.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced out during the 1948 war. Those refugees and their descendants now number millions and are scattered across the region. The Palestinians rightly believe they have the “right of return” to former properties.

However, the White House plan says “there shall be no right of return by, or absorption of, any Palestinian refugee into the state of Israel.”

As Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat stated, Trump’s team had simply “copied and pasted” the blueprint that Netanyahu and Israeli settler leaders wanted to see implemented.

Palestinian anger is justified because the Trump plan essentially adopts the Israeli position on all the thorniest issues of the decades-old conflict, from borders and the status of occupied Jerusalem to security measures and the fate of Palestinian refugees.