President Biden and Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett need to jointly decide on whether to adopt or dump President Trump’s Peace Plan (Trump’s Plan) during their White House meeting on 26 August.
Trump’s Plan (see diagrams following) provides a political and economic path to creating for the first time in recorded history “A Future State of Palestine” between Jordan, Israel and Egypt - or — if rejected — offers the tantalising possibility of extending Jordanian and Egyptian sovereignty - in:
- 70% of Judea and Samaria (West Bank),
- All of Gaza and
- Land currently located within the internationally-recognized boundaries of Israel
“The plan designates defensible borders for the State of Israel and does not ask Israel to compromise on the safety of its people, affording them overriding security responsibility for land west of the Jordan River. For Palestinians, the Vision delivers significant territorial expansion, allocating land roughly comparable in size to the West Bank and Gaza for establishing a Palestinian State. Transportation links would allow efficient movement between Gaza and the West Bank, as well as throughout a future Palestine. The plan does not call for uprooting any Israelis or Palestinians from their homes.”
A joint US-Israeli Mapping Committee established in February 2020 to map the precise area of Judea and Samaria in which Israeli sovereignty was to be extended (approximately 30%) had apparently not concluded its deliberations when Trump left the White House in January 2021.
Israel’s then Prime Minister — Benjamin Netanyahu — endorsed Trump’s Plan.
The Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas rejected Trump’s Plan outright but the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco seemingly accepted its political and economic goals when subsequently normalizing their relationships with Israel.
Biden’s seven months tenure as President has already seen unprecedented chaos and confusion in America’s internal and external relations following Biden’s unilateral dumping of three major Trump policies without consulting individuals, state or foreign Governments affected by such changes:
- Ceasing construction of Trump’s security fence on America’s southern border - facilitating increased unauthorised and illegal entry of aliens into the US.
CNN reported on this continuing crisis on August 13, 2021:
"The Biden administration is facing a “serious challenge” at the US southern border, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday, saying the US has encountered an “unprecedented” number of migrants illegally crossing the border.
During a news conference in Brownsville, Texas, Mayorkas stressed the sharp increase of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border, many of whom are fleeing deteriorating conditions in their home countries.”
- Blocking completion of the Keystone XL pipeline (costing 11000 jobs) and reviewing oil-exploration leases granted by Trump in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - reversing hallmark policies of Trump’s administration championing the oil industry by promoting oil-exploration projects in the interests of securing US energy independence.
- Ditching Trump’s plans for a conditions-based orderly American withdrawal from Afghanistan and replacing it with an unconditional withdrawal - leaving behind billions of dollars of American sophisticated and highly-secret military equipment, up to 15000 American civilians, and thousands of Afghani civilians who helped the US military — and their families - at the mercy of the anti-US Taliban terrorist militants taking over Afghanistan.
Trump’s Plan - the most comprehensive and detailed plan ever prepared by an American President for dividing sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza between Arabs and Jews — remains the best way forward for ending the unresolved 100 years Jewish-Arab conflict.
Trump’s Plan — and his vision for peace - will surely be hovering over Biden and Bennett when they face-off in their White House meeting this week.
Author’s note: The cartoon—commissioned exclusively for this article—is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators—whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades.
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