Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People, is a proposal released on 28th January 2020, by the US President Donald Trump which aims to resolve the Israel–Palestine conflict. India has joined this geopolitical game by asking conflict-hit nations to accept US’s proposal while Russia holds talks with Middle East nations.
Crux of the Matter
The peace plan, which is being called the ‘deal of the century’ by Trump was made by a team led by US President’s Senior Advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner along with U.S Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and American Lawyer Jason Greenblatt.
What’s the Peace Plan?
Jerusalem is proposed as Israel’s undivided capital. Currently, both Israel and Palestine hold claim to this holy city.
An independent Palestinian state would be made with its capital in East Jerusalem.
Palestinians would need to recognize Israel as a Jewish nation-state. 30% of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley, would be given to Israel.
The State of Palestine shall be fully demilitarized and Israel will be responsible for security at all international crossings into Palestine.
Israel will continue to maintain control over the airspace and the radio spectrum along with the Israeli Navy having the right to block prohibited weapons and weapon-making materials from entering Palestine.
The independent Palestinian state would have restricted sovereignty. The conceptual map released, depicts the territorial compromises that Israel is willing to make.
The plan also calls for Palestinian prisoners to be released from Israeli prisons, except those convicted of murder.
The peace plan sets criteria determined by Israel and the United States before a Palestinian state is allowed to form. If at anytime Palestinians are not meeting the criteria, the peace plan gives Israel the right to retake military control.
Palestinians are given an arbitrary time of four years to decide on the plan.
The Palestinians have asserted that the pre-1967 borders should be the basis to begin negotiations for a two-state solution but the new map pushes the borders deep into the West Bank. Thus, the plan is alleged to be partial, favoring Israel as it accepts numerous longstanding Israeli demands including Palestine’s demilitarization.
Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu in a press conference announced that the Israeli government would immediately annex the Jordan Valley and West Bank settlements which will be recognized by the US. Israel has committed to not create any new settlements in areas left to the Palestinians for at least four years. Israel PM after the announcement of the plan met Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the peace plan.
The plan has proposed a $50 billion investment fund for infrastructure and business projects funded mostly by Arab states and wealthy private investors. Majority of it would be spent in West Bank and Gaza to build travel corridors, highways and rail lines. The plan also calls for investing to boost tourism, career counseling and job placement service, re-building and modernizing Palestinian hospitals and health clinics, upgrading cargo terminals and creating a modern database to register land ownership, improving the potable water supply and wastewater treatment, and establishing a new Palestinian university.
Reactions from All Around the World Palestine has been rejecting this deal from the very beginning. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has dismissed the plan by calling it a ‘conspiracy’. He also threatened to cut security ties with both Israel and the U.S.
Jerusalem is not for sale, all our rights are not for sale and are not for a bargain. – Mahmoud Abbas
Hamas, the militant Palestinian Islamist group rejected the deal by saying it is aimed ‘to liquidate the Palestinian national project’.
Jordan expressed its opposition to the plan and reaffirmed its position that the only path to a comprehensive Middle East peace was the establishment of an independent Palestinian state based on land captured by Israel in a 1967 war. It also warned Israel against any ‘annexation of Palestinian lands’
Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif criticized the plan by calling it a nightmare for the region and the world.
Arab League on February 1 issued a unanimous rejection of the plan from the 22 member states and that the league will not cooperate with the US to implement it.
India called on Israel and Palestine to consider the US peace plan for the Middle East and also reiterated its view that the final status issues should be resolved through direct negotiations between the two parties.
The UN has said it is committed to a two-state solution based on the borders in place before the 1967 war.
Curiopedia
History of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict – The conflict began with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. This conflict came from the intercommunal violence in Mandatory Palestine between Israelis and Arabs from 1920 and erupted into full-scale hostilities in the 1947–48 civil war. During the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, with the Balfour Declaration in 1917, the British government endorsed a Zionist proposal to open up Palestine to Jewish immigration in order to establish a national home for Jews there, where they constituted less than 8% of the population.
By 1947, over two-thirds of the population consisted of Palestinians while Jews owned less than 7% of the land. In that year, Arab countries rejected the United Nations Partition Plan, which allotted the majority of the land to the Jewish 30% of the population, and in the ensuing war, Israel conquered half of the portion assigned in the plan to Arabs, assuming control over 78% of historic Palestine, with 80% of the Palestinians who had fled no longer permitted to return to their homes in Israel.
In 1967, the remaining 22% was conquered in a Six-Day War and Israel began colonizing the new land with settlements in violation of international law. In the Oslo Accords of 1993, the Palestinians gained a restricted autonomy in a scattered mosaic of small areas in the West Bank.
From then onwards till 2014 the direct talks between the two nations have been collapsing due to acrimony. In late 2017, the US jumped to mediate and firstly recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel; leading to Palestine cutting-off ties with the US. More Info
Curated Coverage
Hindustan Times – Israeli PM Netanyahu tells Putin Mideast deal a ‘new opportunity’
Hindustan Times – Consider US peace plan, India tells Israel and Palestine
Times of Israel – 3 chunks of Israeli land for Palestine, and 5 more overlooked parts of US plan
BBC News – Trump releases long-awaited Middle-East peace plan
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