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Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Parts of Trump Middle East plan supposedly leaked



Asharq al Awsat that French diplomats have leaked parts of the peace plan that Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt supposedly are drafting for the White House.

According to the leaks, Washington  intends to present its plan within the framework of an international conference held in one of the Arab capitals, most likely in Egypt, with Israel attending.

The plan supposedly says that Washington and other countries can recognize the state of Palestine and do not exclude East Jerusalem as its capital if Jerusalem is under some sort of "international jurisdiction."

The plan is supposed to provide for Palestinians in Arab countries to be naturalized citizens and be compensated, but there would be no "right of return."

There would be a sovereign, demilitarized Palestinian state, but not on the 1967 lines. The Jordan Valley would remain under Israeli control. Some settlements would be dismantled.

The plan did not say anything about larger settlements far from the Green Line.

In return, the PA will have additional security and administrative powers in Areas A and B, and Washington plans to raise $40 billion "not to buy Palestinian acceptance but to help build state and Palestinian institutions."

Border security in the Gaza Strip will be assigned to the Egyptian side, according to the leaked plan.

This plan is largely in line with Israeli demands for peace, and seems unlikely to get any traction unless the US convinces Arab governments and the EU to support it, which seems unlikely since it violates a number of Palestinian red lines and EU positions.

The news story says that an Arab ministerial delegation which recently visited Brussels and met with its European counterparts has been briefed on this information. The Arab ministerial delegation included the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and the PA, as well as the Secretary General of the Arab League, as we reported previously.

It is possible that the leak was engineered to elicit Palestinian anger and to quash it ahead of any conference.

Something like this, if true, would be a long shot under any circumstances, and it would require incredible diplomatic finesse that seems unlikely to come from this administration.




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