Trump peace plan

The Trump peace plan, officially titled "Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People", was a proposal by the Trump administration to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. President Donald Trump formally unveiled the plan in a White House press conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 28 January 2020. The plan had been delayed by two years and previously rejected by the Palestinians, who were not invited to the meeting.[1]

The plan was authored by a team led by Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner.[2] Both the West Bank settlers' Yesha Council[3] and the Palestinian leadership rejected the plan, the former because it envisaged a Palestinian state,[3] and the latter arguing that it was too biased in favor of Israel.[1] The plan was divided into two parts, an economic portion and a political portion. On 22 June 2019, the Trump administration released the economic portion of the plan, titled "Peace to Prosperity". The political portion was released in late January 2020.[1]

The plan had been characterized as requiring too few concessions from the Israelis and imposing too harsh requirements on the Palestinians. Reactions among congressional Democrats were mixed, and all the leading Democratic 2020 presidential candidates[4] denounced it as a "smokescreen" for annexation.[5][6] Proposed benefits to the Palestinians from the plan are contingent on Israel and the United States subsequently agreeing that a list of conditions have been implemented, including total demilitarization, abandonment of international legal action against Israel and the United States and compliance "with all the other terms and conditions" of the 180-page plan. Many of these conditions have been denounced by opponents of the plan as "impossible" or "fantastic."[7][8][9] The plan proposed a series of Palestinian enclaves surrounded by an enlarged Israel, and rejected a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem proper, proposing instead a Palestinian capital on the outskirts of the city. The proposed areas for the Palestinian capital have been described as "grim neighborhoods" and are separated from Jerusalem proper by the Israeli West Bank barrier.[10][11] Many Israeli settlers have expressed discontent and concern with the plan's security assurances.[10][12][13][14]

During the press conference announcing the plan, Netanyahu announced that the Israeli government would immediately annex the Jordan Valley and West Bank settlements while committing not to create new settlements in areas left to the Palestinians for at least four years. U.S. Ambassador to Israel David M. Friedman claimed that the Trump administration had given permission for an immediate annexation, stating that "Israel does not have to wait at all" and "we will recognize it".[15] A spokesman for the Israeli governing Likud party tweeted that Israeli sovereignty over settlements would be declared on the following Sunday. The Trump administration clarified that no such green light for annexation had been given;[16] Trump later explained that "I got angry and I stopped it because that was really going too far".[17]

an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population. The proposal was subsequently endorsed by the League of Nations as part of partitioning of the Ottoman lands. In 1917, Jews constituted less than 8% of the population; by 1947, due mainly to subsequent immigration, they comprised about 33% of the inhabitants, though owning just 7% of the land. That year the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan, which allotted 56% of the land to 30% of the population that was Jewish, although the majority of allocated land was the Negev desert. The Palestinian leadership and the Arab nations rejected the plan, resulting in the 1947–1949 Palestine war.[18] By the war's end, Israel controlled 78% of Mandatory Palestine,