Focus on the Middle East

Trump's big "Peace Deal" - 01/28/2020

In the run-up to the meeting, Trump was expected to announce the farewell to the two-state plan of Oslo, which had so far only been half-defended by the western states - including the EU - in his meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu and the opposition leader - taking advantage of the worldwide wave of sympathy with Israel, resulting from the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which justifiably occupied the world media the previous day and dealt with the crimes of the Nazis. At the same time, the meeting can be seen as mutual aid from both governments - Trump is under pressure - Impeachment and elections are in sight - Netanyahu - Corruption tank charges and also early elections. Trump did not go that far today - formally the two-state solution remains, even if another annexation of Palestinian land and anti-Palestinian planning were given a new, more aggressive face - an initiative that was immediately rejected by the Palestinian government.

The US-Israeli plan is now designed to create Bantustans for the Palestinians, and has unlimited control and power from the Israeli army, and can in no way satisfy the legitimate interests of the Palestinian people.

This assessment is also shared by the Israeli civil rights movement and summarized briefly as follows:

Not peace, but Apartheid: A brief response to the “Trump Plan”

What has changed today? The reality on the ground is already one of full Israeli control over the entire area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and everyone living in it. It is a reality of one, inherently undemocratic, state. And so, the main change today is that Israel and the Trump administration are taking a step further in laying bare their intention to perpetuate this reality. This clarity significantly reduces the gap between the situation as it is, and the euphemistic terms used to describe it.

What hasn’t changed today? Tomorrow, there will still be 14 million people living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, five million of them Palestinian subjects who have no political rights. And all of us here, in one way or another, will remain under the rule of the same government in Jerusalem, a government that works relentlessly to advance the supremacy of one people at the expense of the other, while continually trampling its rights underfoot.

And the future? What the Palestinians are being offered right now is not rights or a state, but a permanent state of Apartheid. No amount of marketing can erase this disgrace or blur the facts. But, the painful facts of today give rise to hope for the future, the only future that can genuinely offer peace. A future not based on supremacy for some and oppression for others, but on full equality, liberty, dignity, and rights for all.

That day will come.

Hagai El-Ad
B’Tselem Executive Director

Info mail B´Tselem from 28.01.2020