{"id":4001,"date":"2020-01-31T16:06:47","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T16:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/?p=4001"},"modified":"2020-01-31T16:06:47","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T16:06:47","slug":"palestinians-face-uphill-battle-against-trumps-middle-east-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/2020\/01\/31\/palestinians-face-uphill-battle-against-trumps-middle-east-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestinians face uphill battle against Trump’s Middle East plan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – When Palestinian leaders learned that the release of U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s Middle East plan was imminent, they swiftly announced a \u201cday of rage\u201d – a gritty, oft-used call for resistance against Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But few demonstrators actually took to the streets despite Palestinians\u2019 broad rejection of Trump\u2019s proposal, a gap between rhetoric and delivery that exposes the scale of the challenge their leaders face in pressuring the United States and Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As in past decades, critics are branding the Palestinians as naysayers, continually rejecting offers of a settlement in the hope, so far futile, of something better to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And domestic frustration with the Palestinian leadership has been building for years, with an ageing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas seeking a legacy but having dwindling scope to demonstrate progress toward his people\u2019s dream of freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contrary to expectations, Trump did propose a \u201ctwo-state\u201d solution for the conflict – but with strict conditions that would leave any future Palestinian state under near-complete Israeli security control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s endorsement of Israel keeping its settlements delighted right-wingers, who immediately urged the extension of Israeli sovereignty to nearly 30% of the occupied West Bank, which Israel captured in a 1967 war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a graphic on the Trump proposal, click here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Reuters<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Palestinians say such moves would lead to apartheid. Israel rejects any comparison of its policies towards the Palestinians to South Africa\u2019s former system of legally-mandated racial segregation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysts say that Palestinians face a difficult road ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t have good options. Responding positively to the Trump peace plan is impossible for any Palestinian leader. He would be seen as having sold out the Palestinian national cause completely,\u201d said Greg Shapland, a Middle East specialist at London\u2019s Chatham House think tank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c(This) whole exercise seems to be structured in such a way that the Palestinians would have to refuse it and then the Americans can say to Israel and to the rest of the world, \u2018go ahead and do it\u2019 because the Palestinians are clearly not interested in peace,\u201d Shapland said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That attack line has already been used by Jared Kushner, Trump\u2019s son-in-law and principal architect of the plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to chase the Palestinians,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cIt will be very hard for them to play the victim card when they basically have a real deal on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a factbox on the plan, click\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

INTERNATIONAL OPPOSITION<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One avenue for Abbas, 84, is to use the United Nations to drum up international opposition to Trump\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Washington can veto any move in the Security Council. And even if Abbas wins support in the General Assembly it will have little more practical effect than a 2017 vote calling on Trump to drop his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That secured 128 of 193 votes in support of the Palestinian argument, but was only a rhetorical show of support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abbas will also try other routes. On Saturday he travels to Cairo for a meeting of the Arab League, where he will engage regional allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But many Arab states rely on U.S. military aid or financial backing. And most are led by Sunni Muslim administrations that are aligned with the United States and Israel in confronting Iran\u2019s revolutionary Shi\u2019ite theocracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization, said it was important to \u201chold the (Arab) states who were part of this charade to account\u201d but that it wasn\u2019t likely to strengthen the Palestinians\u2019 hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA better strategy is to begin to hold Israel accountable, whether it\u2019s through sanctions or legal (moves),\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One such legal move is at the International Criminal Court, whose chief prosecutor is seeking an investigation into alleged war crimes in the Palestinian Territories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The court is still deciding if it has jurisdiction. Israel says the court has no jurisdiction to investigate the Palestinian Territories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – When Palestinian leaders learned that the release of U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s Middle East plan was imminent, they swiftly announced a \u201cday of rage\u201d – a gritty, oft-used call for resistance against Israel. But few demonstrators actually took to the streets despite Palestinians\u2019 broad rejection of Trump\u2019s proposal, a gap between rhetoric and delivery that exposes the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4001"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4002,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4001\/revisions\/4002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}