Vision for Peace | Arrows from Zion

President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu Meeting at the White House Jan 28, 2020

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!"

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.

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.