I'm
going to break from the naysayers decrying this Trump initiated "Vision
for Peace" deal by highlighting some of the more positive views that are
being expressed by Jewish commentators —
both Messianic and traditional conservative Jews. My starting point is that we
know there is no true
peace for Israel until Yeshua returns, but that does not mean that Israel
should not take advantage
of how this deal moves the ball forward on Israel's behalf.
One idea I reject outright is that this is an "Antichrist"
peace deal.
(Published first as the cover story 1/29/20 in Arrows from Zion)
Vision for Peace
A roundup of
assessments 1/29/20 by Donna Diorio
The "Peace to Prosperity: A
Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People"
is 181 pages long, but you can read it for yourself. It is posted on the White
House website and is downloadable in pdf format.
As soon as the plan was shared yesterday, the first
opinion I saw was from one whose views I often find compatible with my own, from traditional
Jewish, but the American Conservative editor of JNS.org, Jonathan S. Tobin. Haaretz
ran Tobin's take in Trump's peace plan
means settlements are permanent. Democrats, get used to it.
Tobin wrote, "Any assumption
that Trump's plan has no long-term significance is almost certainly
wrong."
"Even
when Democrats hold the White House again, they won't be able to reverse the
core terms of Trump's Middle East peace plan, and U.S. leverage over Israel
will have diminished."
“There
is no going back to a diplomatic universe in which there's an assumption that
Israel will bow to US demands for territorial withdrawals—involving the mass
eviction of settlers—once framed as a necessary basis for peace.” Tobin wrote.
From the statement by Jared Kushner, that is very much the point. He ought to know because Kushner is the president's Jewish son-in-law and was one of those involved in crafting the plan.
Kushner has said, "I'm not looking at the world as it existed in
1967. I'm looking at the world as it exists in 2020."
That simply means this plan takes off the table any fantasy negotiation
that envisions Israel returning to 1967 border lines. It is a point that is
always pressed that has now been permanently taken off the table. That is
reason enough for the favorable reception the plan apparently received from
both Netanyahu and his political rival Benny Gantz.
The headline
at Israeli Messianic Israel Today
magazine read, Trump
Deal Flips Peace Process on Its Head. "After more than 20 years of failure despite intensive diplomatic
efforts," they write, "US President Donald Trump’s 'Deal of the Century'
finally proposes a different approach."
"For the past two decades," Israel
Today notes, "the formula underlying the Middle East peace process was
to accept the Palestinian positions, turn a blind eye to their transgressions
(because they were the “oppressed”), and require painful concessions of
Israel."
Arsen Ostrovsky, an international human rights attorney and journalist called Trump's Vision for Peace plan "the most pro-peace, pro-Israel proposal to date!"
Arsen Ostrovsky, an international human rights attorney and journalist called Trump's Vision for Peace plan "the most pro-peace, pro-Israel proposal to date!"
Ostrovsky also tweeted, "That the #Palestinians were going to reject
the #DealOfTheCentury was a given. Most interesting for me, is seeing the reactions
coming from the Arab / Gulf world. This is BIG. Palestinians increasingly on
their own."
He cites the Jerusalem Post report that "Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, and the UAE
on Tuesday issued statements welcoming the Trump administration's peace plan,
and called on both sides to begin negotiations."
Jonathan Schanzer, a counterterrorism expert and a VP at
the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, says that the Trump plan changes the dynamic that past
administrations were locked into by recognizing both sides as equals. This
produced Palestinian recalcitrance leading to deadlock in peace talks for
decades.
“The Palestinians are often granted more power than they actually have;
the Israelis are asked to relinquish power and it’s ended in disaster,”
Schanzer says. “This is an attempt to shift the dynamic to give the Israelis
more power and the Palestinians less in a way that affects the actual dynamic.”
Ron Cantor of Messiah's Mandate notes, "Understand, I am not
100% opposed to a Palestinian state. I recognize that there are 3,000,000 Arabs
within Israel in the disputed territories—people who deserve more. But until
they change their leadership, there will be no peace and no state. The PLO was
born in the blood of terror—not war. They are the fathers of martyrs and
suicide bombers. ...[To this day] The PLO pays out some $360 million a year to
the families of suicide bombers and martyrs."
American
Messianic Jew Dr Michael L. Brown makes a difference between many of the
Palestinian people and their terrorist leaders, "if the Palestinian
populace as a whole could see a way forward to peace and prosperity, wouldn’t
they want to achieve it? And what if the surrounding Muslim nations said, 'Yes,
do this and we will help you prosper as well!' What then?....Frankly, without
massive pressure from the populace as a whole, joined by other Muslim nations,
I do not see this happening. And that is the crux of the problem."
Most of the Jews making comment recognize that there is no way the Palestinians will live up to their side of the deal to bring it to pass. In essence the US plan insists that for the Palestinians to reap the benefits of the plan they have to first accept the plan, then the Palestinian Authority must stop paying terrorists and inciting terrorism. Hamas and Islamic Jihad must put down their weapons. Both the PA and Hamas governed territories must give up corruption, respect human rights, freedom of religion and a free press. This is according to the Jerusalem Post summary of conditions. Few see that happening.
Most of the Jews making comment recognize that there is no way the Palestinians will live up to their side of the deal to bring it to pass. In essence the US plan insists that for the Palestinians to reap the benefits of the plan they have to first accept the plan, then the Palestinian Authority must stop paying terrorists and inciting terrorism. Hamas and Islamic Jihad must put down their weapons. Both the PA and Hamas governed territories must give up corruption, respect human rights, freedom of religion and a free press. This is according to the Jerusalem Post summary of conditions. Few see that happening.
Which may be why US Ambassador to
Israel David Friedman urged Israelis to "apply Israeli law to the
settlements and to the territory" in
an "on-the-record press
call on the
prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.”
Ambassador Friedman said,
"Israel does not have to wait
— does not have to wait at all. The waiting period would be the time it takes for them to obtain
internal approvals and to obviously create the documentation, the calibration,
the mapping that would enable us to evaluate and make sure it’s consistent with
conceptual map."
The Ambassador says that the
plan provides "certain benefits to Israel up front in exchange for Israel keeping the
option open to the Palestinians for a very lengthy period of time.”
Today it
was reported that Prime Minister
Netanyahu will ask the cabinet in its next meeting to vote on applying Israeli
sovereignty over the West Bank.
In news
breaking in the past hour (at this writing 1/29), Blue and White Leader Benny
Gantz has announced that he will bring the US peace plan to the Knesset for an
up or down vote next week. "This is a historic opportunity to draw
Israel's future borders," Gantz told participants today at a national
security conference.
As PA
President Abbas appears to threaten Netanyahu with breaking Oslo agreements
related to security coordination, Israel news is also reporting that the IDF is
bolstering its West Bank troops as Palestinians riot and is conducting ongoing
assessments of the situation.
Jared
Kushner said the plan is "rooted in the principle that a lasting peace
between Israelis and Palestinians must be based on an agreement that satisfies
the basic aspirations of the two peoples – in a manner that guarantees
security, dignity and opportunity for all."
"The
question comes down to, what will the Palestinian leadership do?" Kushner
asked.
He told
Al-Arabia, "wholehearted rejections will show the world that they are not
interested in peace, they have never been interested in peace. And, quite
frankly, in the Palestinian areas, you have a lot of people that are very
vested in the status quo."
If nothing
is done with the deal on the Palestinian side, the situation, Kusher says, will
only get worse for Palestinians who are living in great poverty as it stands
not. There is a $50 billion economic plan and refugee compensation fund that
will help with the Palestinians reabsorbing Palestinian refugees.
Kushner does not see potential for a better
deal if Palestinians let this opportunity die.
"This
is a great deal for them, he says. "If they come to the table and
negotiate, I think they can get something excellent."
"It’s
difficult to come up with a construct where you have a continuous Palestinian
state, where you can drive from one end to the bottom through bridges, tunnels,
roads, Kushner continued. "We figured it out, it was not easy. And then we
were able to sit with Israel and get them to agree to freeze settlement for
four years. That has never been done before. And get them to agree to a
Palestinian state, and get them to agree to a map."
Many will
try to dismiss President Trump's plan as merely an ego-driven deal. That would
be a great disservice to the heart that has been put into this plan to benefit
both sides, but at last from a position that places Israel's needs in proper priority.
Yet again, President Trump has shown himself to be the hands down
best friend in an American president that Israel has ever had.