4 Shevat 5780
30 January 2020
Quotes of the Day about the Trump Peace “Plan”
“Apply sovereignty immediately, without any delay. Jews don’t need approval from others in their own land.”
Likud legislator Michal Shir
“If there is no annexation before the election, it is very unlikely it will happen afterwards.”
Defense Minister Naftali Bennett
“This is a bad and dangerous deal that brings us a Palestinian state that is endangering the state of Israel and giving away territories from the Land of Israel. This morning, it turns out that the candy offered to the Israeli people for sweetening the pill also turned out to be false and untrue.”
A statement from the Otzma (Jewish Power) party
The News on the Israeli Street
On the Gaza Border:
Yad Mordechai: incoming missile alarms at 1:05 pm.
Palestinian terrorists in Gaza have launched two missile attacks: one at Yad Mordechai as seen above, and one at Kissufim earlier. Actually, the IDF cannot seem to make up its mind concerning whether the Kissufim attack was missiles or mortars; however, the IAF has been been carrying out the usual attacks on empty Hamas observation posts, empty buildings, and sand dunes over the last few hours.
In Judea and Samaria:
Palestinian terrorists attacked Israelis with “rocks” and Molotovs at such places as Emanuel, Janya, Kfar Etzion, Beit Ummar, Al-Fawar, Yakir, and Horon.
It has been reported today that the PLO paid 517.4 million shekels ($149 million) to Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons in 2019.
Naama Issachar returns home . . .
Naama landed in Israel this evening on Netanyahu’s plane to the cheers of well-wishers at Ben Gurion Airport. She was quickly whisked away for some private time with her family.
TODAY’S BLOG:
The Devious Deception of the Trump Peace “Plan”
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Our original excitement over the Trump Peace “Plan” is rapidly evaporating.
In yesterday’s blog we discussed how U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and former Trump Middle East negotiator Jason Greenblatt backtracked on the issue of Israeli sovereignty/annexation of parts of Judea and Samaria as well as the Jordan Valley.
A day ago, Friedman said that annexation and sovereignty were not the same thing and that he had never used the term “annexation.” He backtracked even further today by not even using the word “sovereignty”, preferring to use the phrase “an extension of Israeli jurisdiction.”
In the last 24 hours, this backtracking has taken on new dimensions as PM Netanyahu has “postponed” a Cabinet discussion on sovereignty/annexation for “technical reasons.”
In reality, that postponement has more to do with Jared Kushner and Mike Pompeo.
First, we had Jared Kushner stating yesterday that Israel should take no steps to do anything before the March 2 election. Kushner went on to say that nothing can be done until the U.S. and Israel discuss the technicalities of the plan. As an example, Kushner said that “after all, what is the Jordan Valley?”
What is the Jordan Valley? It was only a couple of days ago that the Trump Plan delineated exactly what the Jordan Valley is on a map. It appears now that that map is subject to interpretation and modification.
If this was not enough, we then had American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo making this incredible statement: “We are truly confident that this is a plan that is good for everyone – every Israeli and every Palestinian. And they’re [the Palestinians] . . . free to come up with a counter offer, if that’s what they think is appropriate. We’d look forward to that. We’re prepared to listen, and I know the Israelis will be prepared to sit down and negotiate on the basis of the vision that the President laid out.”
Wow.
What does this mean? It obviously means that the Trump Peace Plan should be more accurately described as the Trump Peace “Vision”, and it also means that the Trump “vision” is nothing but a starting point for negotiations, and Americans are already actively seeking a counter offer from the Palestinians.
In other words, nothing in the “Vision” can remotely be construed as a definite position of the Trump Administration. Everything is up for negotiation.
Except for three things.
Israel has now committed to the Trump Vision map of the borders of a future state of Palestine. Moreover, Israel has now committed to halting all Israeli construction in Area C during the next four years as well as not removing any illegal Palestinian construction in Area C.
In other words, Israel has made three major concessions.
And what have the Palestinians conceded? Absolutely nothing.
How many times have we been down this road before?
Based on what has happened in the last two days, your humble servant is of the unfortunate opinion that what happened in Washington the other day was little more than a devious deception.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.