Daily Times

The so called New Palestine would merely be the embodiment based on a series of discrete cantons, or Bantustans– surrounded by a sea of Israeli settlements, now to be declared part of Israel. As for the security, the New Palestine would be void of any army, just a lightly armed police force. It would be able to act only as a series of disconnected municipalities. And yet ironically, the Palestinians would move between these cantons via lengthy detours, bypass roads, and tunnels. But not much like the travel through the cantons of Switzerland.

Nevertheless, assuming this outline to be correct in the essentials, it raises some justified worries concluding that the benefits to Israel are highly illusory. Given Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan (40 and 25 years ago respectively.) did not give any significant improvement regarding friendly diplomatic relation. Rather, they have had intensified anti-Zionist sentiments among Egyptians and Jordanians. However the same pattern of severe hostility is also followed other Arab diplomatic agreements with Israel – Lebanon in 1983, the PLO in 1993; why should Saudi or Bahraini recognition be otherwise? In other words, Arab state recognition hardly benefits Israel and could hurt it.

Russia has reiterated its readiness to host a reconciliation conference between rival Palestinian groups- the Gaza dominated faction Hamas and the West Bank dominated faction Fatah. Russia’s special envoy to the Middle East and Africa Mikhail Bogdanov stressed t that Russia is ready to go on establishing intensive contacts with all the leading Palestinian political forces and organise a comprehensive Palestinian meeting in Moscow,” the statement added. The European statement continued, “The EU is truly convinced that the achievement of the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as the capital of both States – that meets Israeli and Palestinian security needs and Palestinian aspirations for statehood and sovereignty, ends the occupation and resolves all final status issues in accordance with Security Council Resolution 2234 and previous agreements – is the only viable and realistic way to end the conflict and to achieve a just and lasting peace.”

There is also a thinking being routed in the Arabs’ circle that the Trump administration has to revise the policy of the custodian ship of the holy sites in Jerusalem. Though currently, King Abdullah II of Jordan is both the deface and de jure custodian of the Muslim and Christian holy sites in occupied Jerusalem , yet speculations are growing that the Trump proposed “deal of the century”, offering a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, might also work on transferring the holy guardianship to the House of Saud. Today, some of these old rivalries and claims to historical legitimacy have resurfaced thereby echoing voices from Morocco, Turkey, Jordan and Kingdoms of Saudi Arabia. In the given geopolitical scenario, Saudi Arabia holds a very key position in the eye of the US administration. Turkey is fully supporting the Jordanian right over the sites. This transferring synergy of the holy sites in Jerusalem might pave the way towards serious cleavages in the Muslim world.

While US Proponents of the deal argue that if Washington fails to provide a two-state solution, it does not amount to conclude that it is favouring a one-state solution. Butan unabated truth is that the entire project seems to be reflecting or representing the concept of a vulnerable Palestinian polity based under Israeli sovereignty. The plan seemingly will include the Israeli settlements blocs in the west bank, and not untruly, the plan will ungrudgingly accept West Bank’s outposts under Israel’s control, meaning thereby the Trump’s controversial permission of the Israeli settlements.

In the given geopolitical scenario, Saudi Arabia holds a very key position in the eye of the US administration. Turkey is fully supporting the Jordanian right over the sites. This transferring synergy of the holy sites in Jerusalem might pave the way towards serious cleavages in the Muslim world

And above all, the West Bank based Fatah seems not to accept the terms as it has categorically rejected to accept Trump as an honest broker following his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and his recent decision of supporting Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights. In view of some analysts, the major miscarriage seen in this plan is that it has been devised by divorcing the core elements of traditional Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy, thereby asking too little of Arabs and too much of Israelis.

What both the Israeli premier Netanyahu and the US president Trump have ignored is the irrefutable truth that to strike a real peace deal between the three main parties-the two Palestinian groups and the Israelis is not possible as long as the other Arab stakeholders in the Mideast peace Plan, Jordan, Egypt and Syria in region and three external agents and the parties of the former peace deal of the Quartet– the UN, the EU, and Russia also support the deal. Saudi Arabia and Egypt are unlikely to throw their weight behind the proposal being drawn up by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and adviser, and White House Middle East peace negotiator Jason Greenblatt, according to interviews with key diplomats and analysts in Washington. One diplomat called the initiative, which has yet to be made public, “hocus pocus” and doubted whether Trump – who has raised questions about whether he supports a Palestinian state – cares about a negotiated settlement.

And of course, the prevailing Israeli thinking is that the said plan is, nevertheless, a closing end game in the sense that the Palestinians show resilience over the Jerusalem issue and in response they might be given a haven to live within the Israeli borders. But this Israeli reckoning is wrong. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyah told Senator Mitt Romney that he will not engage “in any political process that does not meet the minimum of Palestinian rights, which include an independent and sovereign Palestinian state along 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital and a just resolution to the refugees’ issue”.

But many peace pragmatists discern that another false dawn of the Mideast peace is in the offing since the Arab quest for partnering with the US president Trump is already faltering. The Arab leaders have asked the Trump administration to halt the proposal unless the crucial issues about the fate of the Palestinians’ economic future and the Palestinian right over East Jerusalem are justly resolved. The credibility of the deal is staggering, far beyond that hopes for the Mideast peace are extremely grimed. It is unclear how can this apartheid state of Israel claim its legitimacy by working on a project whose reputation is already waning because of contraventions of international law, and its nascent creation based on a controversial holocaust theory?

To be continued

The writer is an independent ‘IR’ researcher and international law analyst based in Pakistan