The Guardian
Last week, an impeached US president revealed his plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace, with an indicted Israeli prime minister at his side. Yet far from being a “historic” peace plan, Donald Trump’s initiative is merely the repackaging of ideas from previous failed negotiations, including from the days in which I served as a legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team.
Then, as now, Israeli plans had the same aim: to confine as many Palestinians as possible on as little land as possible, while legalising Israel’s illegal settlements and depriving Palestinians their guaranteed right to return to their homeland. This is not a plan for peace but a demand that Palestinians agree to their perpetual subjugation.
It would give Israel large swathes of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley, so it need not dismantle any of its illegal settlements. It provides that Jerusalem will be the undivided capital of Israel, with Palestinians relegated to some suburb as their capital. It demands that Palestinians give up the right of return and accept Israel as a “Jewish state”.
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