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Trump unveils longshot Middle East peace plan with path to Palestinian statehood

Speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump outlined the details of the plan he has touted as the "deal of the century."

By CAITLIN OPRYSKO

President Donald Trump on Tuesday unveiled his administration's long-awaited blueprint for Middle East peace, a plan that he hailed as a "win-win opportunity" for both Israel and the Palestinians despite its long odds for success.

Speaking from the East Room at the White House alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Trump outlined the details of the plan he has touted as the "deal of the century" and which has been more than three years in the making. He noted that the plan contained conditions for eventual Palestinian statehood.

The plan has nonetheless been preemptively rejected by Palestinian leaders over the expectation that it would allow Israeli annexations of West Bank settlement. Though Trump cast the plan Tuesday as potentially "the last opportunity they will ever have" at achieving Palestinian statehood, it would grant Israel sovereignty over the strategic Jordan Valley and other West Bank settlements.

The U.S., Trump announced, "will recognize Israeli sovereignty over the territory that my vision provides to be part of the state of Israel," which he called "very important." But while the plan would grant Israel sovereignty over certain settlement blocs in the West Bank, it would also institute a four-year freeze on new settlement construction while negotiations continue.

The framework will also provide the Palestinians with a pathway to "a contiguous territory within the future Palestinian state, for when the conditions for statehood are met," Trump said, "including the firm rejection of terrorism," as well as the adoption of standards for human rights, religious freedoms and anti-corruption measures.

After his speech, Trump tweeted out a conceptual map that he said illustrated "the territorial compromises [Israel] is willing to make for the cause of peace," the first time such a step has been taken.

Trump argued that the new boundaries "will more than double the Palestinian territory and provide a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem where America will probably open an embassy," asserting that "no Palestinians or Israelis will be uprooted from their homes."

The map shows a contiguous “future State of Palestine” comprising the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank connected by a series of tunnels and bridges.

The question of Jerusalem's status has long been a major sticking point in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, with Israel insisting that the undivided city be recognized as its capital. Palestinians, for their part, have long called for their own capital in east Jerusalem as part of any peace talks. The U.S. had for years remained neutral on the issue, declining to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a step past presidents declined to take in order to avoid inflaming tensions amid peace talks.

Trump announced in late 2017 that his administration would move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, angering Palestinian authorities who have since fiercely resisted any talk of negotiations with the U.S.

Trump on Tuesday pegged his drive for the peace plan, which has been spearheaded over the past three years by Jared Kushner,his son-in-law and senior adviser, to his first overseas trip as president when he met with the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, while on a trip to Israel.

“I was saddened by the fate of the Palestinian people. They deserve a far better life, they deserve a chance to achieve their extraordinary potential,” Trump said of his trip. “I returned from my visit determined to find a constructive path — and it has got to be a very powerful path forward in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Trump used a portion of his White House event on Tuesday to speak directly to Abbas.

"President Abbas, I want you to know that if you choose the path to peace, America and many other countries, we will be there, we will be there to help you in so many different ways," Trump said, "and we will be there every step of the way, we will be there to help."

He also revealed that he'd written the Palestinian leader earlier in the day to implore Palestinian consideration of the U.S. proposal.

"I explained to him that the territory allocated for his new state will remain open and undeveloped for a period of four years," Trump said. "During this time, Palestinians can use all appropriate deliberation to study the deal, negotiate with Israel, achieve the criteria for statehood, and to become a truly independent and wonderful state."

The framework unveiled on Tuesday will build on the first part of an “economic vision” for Palestinian territories and neighboring Arab countries outlined by the White House last year. But the initial plank, which envisions a $50 billion commercial investment in a Palestinian state, was panned by Palestinians even without getting into the thornier political issues addressed in Tuesday's rollout.

The plan released on Tuesday has repeatedly been delayed because of domestic issues both in the U.S. and Israel, which is in the throes of its third election in less than a year, with Netanyahu and opposition leader Benny Gantz vying to form a government.

Both men met with Trump at the White House on Monday, and both said that Trump's plan had their backing.

Meanwhile, Trump and Netanyahu, who have long been close, are facing threats to their political careers with an impeachment trial ongoing in the Senate and Netanyahu facing criminal corruption charges at home. Before Tuesday’s event at the White House, Netanyahu withdrew a bid for immunity from the charges he was facing at home ahead of a likely defeat from the country’s Parliament that would have revoked his immunity.

But in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Jason Friedman, dismissed the notion that the plan’s release was timed to be a political boon to either Trump or Netanyahu.

On Trump’s end, he contended that the White House wanted to release its proposal before the president got into the thick of his reelection campaign. And Friedman said that the White House took the unusual step of getting sign-off from Gantz, as well, to avoid the blueprint coming off as a political maneuver.