U3F1ZWV6ZTQ2NTY5MDk2NTY1X0FjdGl2YXRpb241Mjc1NjM2MTE2Njg=
recent
Hot News

Even Jared Kushner’s Failing Peace Plan May Help Israel Annex West Bank.............




Skepticism about the Middle East peace plan drawn up by U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law abounds, but even a failed effort may play into the hands of Benjamin Netanyahu.
The prime minister won his latest election partly on promises to extend Israeli sovereignty to Jewish settlements in the disputed West Bank, a move that would see Israel taking another unilateral step away from decades of international consensus on how to resolve the crisis.
While Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner has revealed little about his long-awaited proposal, it’s widely expected to include increased Israeli control over the West Bank. For the hardliners in Netanyahu’s coalition, the time is ripe with their ally Trump in the White House to seize more of the disputed territory regardless of whether the broader peace plan -- which the Palestinians have rejected in advance -- succeeds or fails

Arab Support

Another hurdle for any U.S. peace plan is that Arab nations counted on to provide financial and political support may be reluctant to do so after the Golan Heights and Jerusalem embassy moves, both of which were widely unpopular in the region.


And as the 2020 U.S. presidential race gets underway, the incentive for Trump to turn his plan into a political wedge issue will also grow, Makovsky, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said. Trump has sought to paint the Democratic party as anti-Semitic, using Representative Ilhan Omar’s criticism of U.S. support for Israel to suggest the party is moving away from its traditional support of the Jewish state.
White House officials declined to comment on the peace plan.
Trump and Kushner could still prove their detractors wrong. Administration officials have said one reason not to stick closely to previous proposals is that those earlier efforts all failed. And the Palestinians could still surprise Israel and the U.S. by deciding to enter into talks, calculating that they have nothing to lose and potentially something to gain.

Gaza Withdrawal

But that’s not the bet most analysts are making. After all, unilateral Israeli actions to solve the Palestinian conflict aren’t new. In 2005, Ariel Sharon pulled out of Gaza. This time, regardless of how the peace plan roll-out goes, Netanyahu may go for the opposite scenario, expanding frontiers with Trump’s backing, said Natan Sachs, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Former Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, who’s now a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party in Parliament, suggested as much. “We should annex parts of the West Bank anyway regardless of their plan." He added, “One could take it as an opportunity.”

NameEmailMessage