US exploring ways to make Trump peace plan binding  

T. Belman. Currently the Trump Plan as tabled is only a vision. A Memorandum of Understanding as mooted is not a contract and is not binding. That being the case it wouldn’t protect Israel from a Democratic Administration. The best best protection for Israel would be for her to extend sovereignty prior to Nov 3/20 with Trump’s acquiescence if not backing.

Thus far, despite both Israeli and American interest in the “deal of the century” remaining on the table, there is nothing that obligates future administrations to abide by the content of plan.

By Ariel Kahana, ISRAEL HAYOM

The US administration is examining the possibility of issuing a document that would commit future governments to President Donald Trump’s peace plan, Israel Hayom has learned.

The idea has been presented to senior White House officials and is under discussion.

At this stage, it is still unclear how understandings between Israel and the US about the Trump plan would be made binding. One possibility would be to issue a memorandum of understanding that would state that would state that the Trump plan is the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Another option would be to issue a binding document in the style of the Bush Letter, which promised that settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria would never be evacuated.

The administration puts great importance on ensuring that the Trump peace plan remains active and implementable, even if a new administration is elected in November. Talks about the wording of the announcement about Israel and the United Arab Emirates normalizing relations included considerable efforts to persuade all sides to adopt the Trump plan as binding.

Israel also has a strong interest in keeping the plan on the table. Many in Israel consider the Trump plan the best option ever presented by any American administration. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition partners Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, as well as Opposition leader Yair Lapid, have all expressed support for it.

Thus far, the support has been verbal. The US and Israeli interest in making the plan binding for the future prompted the suggestion that both sides put their positions down in writing.

This would not be the first time that the US has taken such a step. In 1975, President Gerald Ford wrote to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and told him that the US would give serious consideration to Israel remaining on the Golan Heights. President George W. Bush said in a letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that the US recognized demographic changes in Judea and Samaria, and that the settlement blocs would remain in place. Despite the importance of such documents, they cannot obligate future administrations.

Both Jerusalem and Washington agree that there are no binding commitments in place for the Middle East other than the joint declaration by leaders of Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and the US about Israeli-Emirati ties. Netanyahu advisor Aaron Klein told Israel Hayom that “there is no other commitment and no other documents. Not about sovereignty or any other issue.”

In an exclusive interview, Klein rejected the claim that there was any “deal” to cancel Israel’s plans to apply sovereignty to the Jordan Valley and settlements in the West Bank in exchange for peace with the Emiratis.

“The administration asked Israel twice to postpone sovereignty. The first time was right after the ceremony in January, and the second time was recently. Considering that dynamic, the prime minister decided to agree to the request, and that is what led to the [normalization] deal. But there was no deal to give up sovereignty in exchange for a peace deal. They were two separate things,” he said.

Klein, 40, has been working with Netanyahu for under a year and is known as a “shadow” advisor, meaning he has little contact with other members of the government. According to some reports, he is very close with Netanyahu. Speaking to Israel Hayom, Klein said that the agreement with the Emirates “puts Israel into a new era. Netanyahu has proven the Left wrong. While other Israeli politicians supported the Iran nuclear deal, Netanyahu was sometimes the only one in the world to take a stance against it and against Iran. That is one of the things that helped the deal [with the Emirates] move forward.”

Klein says that many people thought that the only way Israel would make peace with Arab countries would be if it reached an agreement with the Palestinians.

“Since 2002, people have been saying that only the Arab peace plan, which included an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders and attracted a lot of attention, is the only formula for peace. In contrast, Netanyahu argued that we could normalize with Arab countries and they would push the Palestinians to drop their goal of destroying Israel. That’s what happened. Now Israel and the UAE are making peace, and that is a change to the paradigm. It will take a few weeks, maybe months, for people to understand that change in thinking in the Middle East. That is the Netanyahu Doctrine,” Klein says.

Q: Will Israel apply sovereignty, or is that just talk?

“Sovereignty is currently off the table, because the US administration asked that it be postponed temporarily. To anyone who is attacking Netanyahu for not going ahead with sovereignty, I say that it would be irresponsible of him to make a move like that without American support. I remind you that Netanyahu is the one who brought up the idea of applying sovereignty. He has changed the paradigm on that, as well, because before it, there was talk of a withdrawal, and now people are talking about sovereignty and settlement.”

Q: If Trump wins the election, will Israel declare sovereignty?

“We need to look at it from a broad perspective. We’ve been waiting since 1967 and everyone understands that the postponement is temporary. The prime minister will keep working on it, and President Trump has already proven that he is the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House. So Israel will work with the US, and it will be brought up at the right time.”

Q: What countries are next?

“I hope that the Emirates are just the beginning, and we’ll see more Arab countries follow suit. That is the plan that the prime minister has talked about many times. After years of the Palestinians turning down everything they are offered, he talked about his belief that the Arab world would come to the table to make peace in exchange for peace, peace based on mutual interest and not a peace of retreat.”

August 18, 2020 | 16 Comments »

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  1. @ Edgar G.:
    Netanyahu’s “achievements” (listed on this very site if you can be bothered to read the article):
    https://www.israpundit.org/are-netanyahu-and-gantz-postponing-sovereignty-intentionally-in-case-trump-is-not-elected/comment-page-1/#comment-63356000224195
    Israel was turned “from a fringe 3rd world country into a major world power” not by Netanyahu but by the Soviet aliyah of one million people the majority of whom were highly educated – medical doctors, dentists, engineers, teachers, scientists, IT professionals, etc.
    I read somewhere recently that there is a quiet panic in some circles in Israel because the former Soviet doctors are retiring and there is no one (or very few) to replace them.
    Nine out of ten pharmacists in Israel are Arab.
    Israel is letting the Bedouin take over the Negev while building real estate on the valuable agricultural lands.
    But, of course, this is not Bibi’s fault – how can it ever be?!
    He is such a great orator and has such a magical voice!
    I base my posts on the best information I can get – they are not fantasies or hypotheses.
    I state FACTS and I base my conclusions on FACTS.
    If you don’t like my conclusions, REFUTE them with FACTS, not with groundless accusations or personal impressions and feelings.

  2. @ Reader:

    I forgot to add that nobody is in the slightest concerned about Netanyahu’s virtue and truthfulness-except perhaps his wife….and-(although I don’t know why) you. He is a statesman, a very successful politician-even a diplomat-, and the above qualities you mention are often conspicuous by their very absence where ALL politicians are concerned.

  3. @ Reader:

    This sounds as silly as anything I’ve ever read on this site. READER, you are hypothesizing, and speculating, and foretelling (they used to burn people at the stake for that) ..please be more rational and don’t run away with yourself. Netanyahu is the very best PM that Israel ever had, has turned it from a fringe 3rd world country into a major world power, with many countries anxious to deal with Israel, who, before were totally antagonistic to the Jewish State. He’s steered Israel through very perilous periods as if he were the skipper of a boat caught on a roaring river in a narrow canyon…..

    He plays 3 dimensional politics, as if he were paying chess. The world’s great leaders don’t respect him because he has a nice smile, but for his very obvious quality..

    Despite the wholly intolerable strains and malicious pressures put on him in his home country by political rivals and enemies. He seems )I don’t know how) to be able to compartmentalize all the different pressures , and, like a juggler, keep everything going with ease and aplomb. At least, so it seems.

    In fact he compares VERY favourably with every other world leader.

  4. All I can answer to your unfounded beliefs in Bibi’s virtue and truthfulness and “Palestinian” Arab weakness and hopelessness is:
    1) Israel is, in fact, a colony of the US (and has been for decades) – it can be described as the US Mandate
    2) Israel’s government for many years has been acting against Israel’s interests as far as the Jewish settlement , aliyah, and the pace of construction and quantity of real estate is concerned while encouraging the Arab settlement even within the Green Line and Area C about which I posted links here several times.
    It looks as though Israel is getting ready to go back into the territory of the “three sausages” designated in 1947 for the Palestinian Jews by the UN, except then the Jewish population was 650,000 and now they will have to fit SEVEN MILLION Jews into those “three sausages”.
    The question is – WHOSE INTERESTS is Israel’s government serving then?
    The answer is – most likely, the interests of its colonial master, the United States.
    3) The United States is still the most powerful country in the world.
    Its top representative who was very closely involved with the Deal of the Century and is a close relative of Trump (and Trump now happens, at least theoretically, to be the most powerful man in the world) says publicly that:
    a) Israel agreed to a “Palestinian” state with land swaps
    b) Trump endorsed the two-state solution
    c) the US will not permit Israel to act on sovereignty until the US lets it
    I simply cannot and will not dismiss it as “nonsense”, “overstatement”, etc.
    Sure, we have to always hope, rely on the Almighty, etc. but this doesn’t replace facing reality which is that the Israeli politicians seem to be dismantling the Zionist project, and no amount of rationalization, fantasizing, dismissing Kushner’s and Trump’s statements or looking for their hidden meaning, and head-in-the-sand exercises will make this reality go away.

  5. The deal as Bibi has pointed out correctly is for Israel to negotiate on the basis of the Trump Vision. Israel has agreed to that it has NEVER signed lock stock and barrel. If there was a Pal negotiating partner that was real and could make happen all the requirement of the Pals such as disarming Hamas in Gaza, agreeing to Israeli Jerusalem, agree to Israeli Jordan Valley and agree to Israel keeping all the settlements and holy sites then Israel would agree to a lot of things in the Trump Vision as long as Bibi is PM and he has his current coalition.

    No Pal negotiators exist and the Trump Vision is going nowhere.

    If Israel does have elections and Bibi wins again and the election comes out similar to the latest polls and Bennett plus Yamina are needed to form a right wing government then Israel very well could apply sovereignty with or without US approval. Also No Pal Statelet would be agreed to.

    Kushner calls it a Pal State. Bibi says Kushner can call it what he likes and he will not name it. He is meaning that a demilitarized Pal State basically the PA permanent with all borders, airspace dominated by the IDF he would agree to it.

    Sort of a San Marino surrounded by Italy with a police force. They cooperate with Italy but are dominated by them. They run their own municipality basically but have a flag and a National Soccer Team (which really sucks).

  6. Yes he said it but what does it mean? Actually, it is an overstatement. The original deal was that Israel could extend sovereignty to the Jordan Valley and the settlements providing they agree to negotiate with the Palestinians in good faith on the creation of an entity as described by Trump. I called it a statelet as what the Palestinians would get falls way short of a sovereign state. But in no way will the Palestinians accept such a statelet so there is no downside to Israel committing itself to negotiate in good faith. Also, nowhere in the document did it say that the Palestinians would get a state on the rest. or that Israel could only get 30%. And Israel had to agree to freeze building for 4 years only. After that if there is no agreement, Israel can do what it wants.

    This very vague document was enough cover for UAE to do their peace deal with Israel within weeks.

    The matter of the swaps is another red herring. That used the language of the Obama process. You know ’67 lines and swaps.

    The proposed swaps are another fig leaf because elsewhere in the trump Plan he reiterated the principal that 242 didn’t require israel to vacate all of the land. Thus there was no need to swap land other than to afford another fig leaf to the moves the Arab states would now make.

  7. @ Ted Belman:
    This is in case you missed my previous posts:
    Israel’s Self-Imposed “White Paper” [about restricting the Jewish settlement and enabling the Arab settlement WITHIN the Green Line in the 21st century]:
    https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/israels-self-imposed-white-paper/2020/07/10/

    Limiting aliyah (the rest are free to perish in the Diaspora):

    …the State of Israel can absorb around a quarter of a million new immigrants from around the world in the next five years. Young people, graduates, entrepreneurs and those with high-demand professions.
    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/285345

    It was Netanyahu who let the “Palestinians” build in Area C, and allowed the construction to be financed by the EU legally.
    https://www.israpundit.org/are-netanyahu-and-gantz-postponing-sovereignty-intentionally-in-case-trump-is-not-elected/comment-page-1/#comment-63356000224195
    He has been working for the two-state “Final Solution” the whole time.

  8. @ Ted Belman:
    More of Jared Kushner going on about “the historic breakthrough” and how Trump “has not forgotten the Palestinian people” and “has endorsed the two-state solution”:
    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/285279
    Here is the one where the settlers are very upset with Netanyahu who falsely accuses them of refusing the annexation:
    https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/settlers-call-for-netanyahus-ouster-pm-charges-they-gave-up-sovereignty-638885?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=spotim_recirculation
    Now, N. is NOT lying that he hasn’t given up on extending sovereignty over the settlements, he is just covering up the fact that the sovereignty came packaged with a Pal. state.
    ——————————————————————————
    Mohammed Dahlan pops up (to replace the aged Abbas?)
    UAE demand advanced weapons:
    https://www.jewishpress.com/news/eye-on-palestine/it-gets-worse-abbass-nemesis-in-on-peace-deal-uae-demanding-advanced-weapons/2020/08/16/

  9. Reader Said:

    there was a deal for Israel to recognize a Pal. state in Judea and Samaria with land swaps from within the Green Line and THIS is what Americans understand, and announce, and want to make permanent.

    Nonsense.

  10. @ stevenl:

    They’ve been bandying both terms around for years. The correct expression is “extend Sovereignty”, since many experts have pointed out that Israel is already Sovereign over the area, but chose, for it’s own reasons, not to push it until appropriate. The presence of the Arabs there makes it difficult. They have taken the first few steps by dividing the areas into A, B, C, with C mostly free of Arabs.

    “Suspended: means just what it says. “Cancelled” means something altogether different..

  11. There was no deal to explicitly give up sovereignty in exchange for peace, there was a deal for Israel to recognize a Pal. state in Judea and Samaria with land swaps from within the Green Line and THIS is what Americans understand, and announce, and want to make permanent.
    They also insist that NOTHING is to happen without American oversight and permission.
    All the Arab countries that Israel will be forced to sign peace agreements with will become “kosher” for the US (and EU?) weapons sales.
    Is Israel a sovereign country or is it a ghetto administered by a Judenrat?

  12. It was explicitly stated: suspension of annexation!
    Annexation is inappropriate for IL is only recovering what was stolen from her!
    The parties have both an interest in developing their relationship! with or without the US!