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President Donald Trump said Thursday that he'll likely release his
long-awaited Mideast peace plan before his meeting early next week at the White
House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main political
rival Benny Gantz.
JERUSALEM (AP) -- President Donald Trump said Thursday that he'll likely
release his long-awaited Mideast peace plan before his meeting early next week
at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main
political rival Benny Gantz.
"It's a great plan. It's a plan that really would work," Trump told
reporters on Air Force One en route to a Republican Party meeting in Florida.
The plan, which would be rolled out as Trump's Senate impeachment trial
continues on Capitol Hill, is expected to be pro-Israel, which would please
U.S. evangelical and Jewish voters. It also comes as Netanyahu seeks immunity
from Israeli lawmakers from charges stemming from corruption investigations.
Trump said he was surprised that both Netanyahu and Gantz were willing to
take a break from campaigning for the March 2 elections to join him Tuesday in
Washington.
"They both would like to do the deal. They want to see peace," Trump said.
"Look, Israel wants peace, Palestinians want peace. They all want peace. Not
everyone wants to say it."
He said his administration has talked briefly to the Palestinians, who have
rejected the administration's peace plan before it even comes out.
"We've spoken to them briefly. But we will speak to them in a period of
time," Trump said. "And they have a lot of incentive to do it. I'm sure they
maybe will react negatively at first, but it's actually very positive to them."
"We took away their money," Trump added. "That's a lot of money for them."
The U.S. stopped funding the U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees,
which slashed hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for projects in the West
Bank and Gaza and cut funding to hospitals in Jerusalem that serve
Palestinians. Trump also closed the Palestinian diplomatic mission in
Washington, saying the Palestinians refused to engage in peace talks with
Israel.
Vice President Mike Pence announced the invitation for Netanyahu and Gantz
to visit during a meeting with the prime minister in Jerusalem after addressing
an international forum Thursday on the Holocaust. He said that at Netanyahu's
request, the invitation was also issued to Gantz.
Asked when he would release the plan, which has been shepherded by the
president's adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, Trump said it would be rolled
out "sometime prior" to his meeting with Netanyahu and Gantz. "Probably we'll
release it a little bit prior to that."
The plan is expected to strongly favor Israel, and is unlikely to garner any
international support if it is seen as undermining the prospect of a two-state
solution.
"We have had no better friend than President Trump," Netanyahu said. "With
this invitation, I think that the president is seeking to give Israel the peace
and security that it deserves."
The Palestinians rejected Trump's peace efforts after he recognized disputed
Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the U.S. Embassy there in May
2018. The Palestinians want east Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in the 1967
war and annexed, to be their capital.
"If this deal is announced with these rejected formulas, the leadership will
announce a series of measures in which we safeguard our legitimate rights, and
we will demand Israel assume its full responsibilities as an occupying power,"
said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
He appeared to be referring to oft-repeated threats to dissolve the
Palestinian Authority, which has limited autonomy in parts of the
Israeli-occupied West Bank. That would force Israel to resume responsibility
for providing basic services to millions of Palestinians.
"We warn Israel and the U.S. administration from crossing the red lines,"
Abu Rdeneh said.
Israel's Channel 12 TV, citing Israeli officials, said the plan is expected
to be extremely favorable toward Israel and offer it control over large parts
of the occupied West Bank. The Palestinians seek the entire territory, which
was also captured by Israel in 1967, as the heartland of a future independent
state. Most of the international community supports the Palestinian position.
Netanyahu has said he plans to annex the Jordan Valley as well as Jewish
settlements across the West Bank, which would all but extinguish any
possibility of creating a viable Palestinian state.
Netanyahu has tried to make that the cornerstone of his campaign for
reelection following unprecedented back-to-back elections last year that left
him in a virtual tie with Gantz, with neither able to cobble together a ruling
coalition.
The deadlock was deepened by Netanyahu's indictment last year on serious
charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust stemming from three long-running
corruption investigations. Netanyahu has asked Israel's parliament to grant him
immunity.
Next week's meeting could produce an awkward scene. Gantz has made
Netanyahu's indictment the focus of his campaign to oust the prime minister.
And his Blue and White party is leading an effort in parliament to block
Netanyahu's immunity request before the election. At the same time, they will
be joined by an impeached president who is being tried in the Senate.
The U.S. was believed to be holding back on releasing the peace plan until
Israel had a permanent government. Those calculations may have changed as the
deadlock in Israeli politics looks to be further prolonged.
Trump may also be looking for a boost from evangelical and pro-Israel
supporters as the Senate weighs whether to remove him from office after he was
impeached last month, and as he gears up for a reelection battle this year.
Pence was among dozens of world leaders in Jerusalem on Thursday for the
World Holocaust Forum. Many of the participants, including Russian President
Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron, also paid visits to the
Palestinians in the West Bank. A Palestinian official said Abbas asked the
visiting French and Russian presidents to support the Palestinian position when
the plan is published.
"He asked them to refuse and act against any Israeli annexation of
Palestinian lands," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity
because he was discussing closed meetings.
While the plan is expected to be friendly to Israel, it could still face
opposition from Netanyahu's hard-line partners.
Defense Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the ultra-nationalist Yamina
party, called Trump a "true friend" of Israel and said the country likely
stands before a "historic opportunity." But he said his party would not allow
the transfer of any land to Palestinian control or for a Palestinian state to
be established.
In Washington, Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal advocacy group J
Street, said Trump's plan to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict won't be
a peace plan, "but rather a plan to enshrine the Israeli settler movement's
agenda" as U.S. foreign policy.
"It's clear that a U.S. proposal which endorses settlement expansion or
annexation does not reflect the true interests of the United States and will
not hold as U.S. policy under future administrations," said Ben-Ami, whose
organization supports a two-state solution to the conflict.
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