Trump Middle East Plan: Last Chance for the Palestinians?

Why does nobody mention Jordan as the (possible) "Palestinian" state ? After all, about 100 years ago the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, which was reserved for a Jewish National Home, was a lot bigger - it included Jordan ! The Arabs found a way to get hold of that part of land now called Jordan.

The PA and Hamas will never accept or implement this deal, but their respective leaderships may not be as popular as the leaders think. So a very new and different possibility is that the US and Israel sponsor a new "Palestinian" entity which the US and Israel COULD recognize and which would recognize Israel! This new state would be democratic, secular and financed initially by the US (taking US money away from the present PA and Hamas). We could have a competition for the name of this new state!

A minor but important detail from Abbas' anti-historical speech in which he rejected Trump's Plan of the century and actually declared a war on both - USA and Israel by cutting all ties , relations with them and even obligations stated in defunct Oslo Accords. The " moderate" Abbas showed a map of Palestine, all green, even not a bit of Israel's flag or insignias and then another map on which he demonstrated how American imperialists and Israeli Zionists "robbed" homeless Palestinians from their "historical motherland"
Peter Rotberg.

Impossible. Arabs living at the area of Palestine will not accept any offer. There are two major reasons: 1. Their so called leaders may lose millions regularly landing in their pockets. 2. They all follow Islamic laws, so no recognition of Israel and no peace with Jews is possible. They only thing that can make them move in this direction is the pressure by the oil rich Arab states and the threat of losing their lavish subsidies. But even then, assuming the Arab state is created, the terror will continue.

This says it all: Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority may remain self-righteous and draped in their claims, but it would unmask their real role as corrupt and autocratic leaders, intent on keeping their people as destitute and unempowered as possible.

The whole point of a plan such as Trump's is to fulfill the Arabs' desire for a new state. The problem is with that major premise: the Arabs want a new state like a fish wants a bicycle. The proof is too embarrassingly obvious to repeat: the Arabs had a chance for their own state numerous times over recent years, yet even when offered the WHOLE enchilada by Olmert and Barak, they chose war instead. Why argue, then, that this plan is good for them? They don't want a state; they want Israel, all of Israel, and only Israel! It's not a territorial issue but a religious one, and the Arabs obviously won't be satisfied till they get it all. And let's not pretend that the leaders are fooling and exploiting the Arab "street": in poll after poll, year after year, the "ordinary" Arab supports the terror and all the attendant murder and mayhem. Yeah, there are a few enlightened Arabs out there, but if there were more than a few, you'd hear their voices. It's beyond obvious that the Arabs' material existence would improve were there peace w/Israel; but then that has always been true. Isn't it clear beyond cavil that the Arabs are not looking for material benefits, and that what they want and have always wanted is dead Jews?

Were the PA leaders to accept this plan, that would be the end of the Palestinian leaders and their corrupt gravy train. The more the Palestinian people benefit from a true and honest peace deal in which Israel also benefits, the worse it looks for Palestinian corruption and their Gulf State/Iranian/EU underwriters.

One can't make peace with people who don't want peace.
Remaining victims suits their cause, even if it is to the detriment of Palestinians themselves.

The real issue has always been and will be--" outsourced anti-Semitism "--anti-Semitism with over 2000 years of history from Europe--never died only hibernated--and now this new form of having others do your hatred--call it what it should be--this has always been the nightmare that Jews never could face--beyond their control---they just become victims in different ways and in different cultures--time to study this night mare and bring to shame the real creators of this future shame.

This sort of deal could have been made at any time since Sadat took Egypt off the list of unconditional backers of the Palestinian terrorists. What Trump has done is to flesh it out by filling in much of the detail, and show how well it could work to the advantage of both sides, if both sides wanted peace.

Unfortunately, the conglomeration of terrorist gangs still rule the Palestinian Arabs, and they don't want peace any more than they did forty years ago. Peace would destroy their reason for existing, and replace them as the ruling class. Without the "struggle" with Israel for control of everything "from the river to the sea", they have no reason for being, and no reason to expect their people to tolerate their thieving, tyrannical rule. Neither Fatah, Hamas, or any of the lesser groups will make peace with Israel -- it would put them out of business. They may pretend to if they can gain some advantage without actually doing it, but that will be their limit. If the people there want peace, they will first have to replace their leadership with people who want peace.

We know what Israel can contribute. It has done so freely volunteered in dozens of countries needing their expertise. What has Palestine to offer ?

Is the EU against a solution to this issue because they are afraid that they would have no more excuse to impose the taxes they use to fund the Swiss bank accounts of the terrorist leadership of the Palestinians? If the plan were to be successful, the EU would have one less Oceania to use to scare its people.

The Palestinian Arabs make more money as victims of Israeli occupation than they would having a country of their own. That's why no deal will ever be acceptable. The deal of the Century took this into consideration with it's proposed $50 billion injection into the Palestinian economy but that's not enough money to accept the reality of a Jewish state.

You write that " It will be argued that the Palestinians have no other state of which they can easily become citizens." While that is most likely, it should be remembered that the political leadership claiming to represent and fight for those who left their homes in Israel in 1948 looked to a continuation of the previous Ottoman administrative arrangements as defining the Arab population's and the geographic area's identity, hence Syrian. No Palestinian nation had previously existed. Also, it appears that most of the present-day Jordanian population is of Palestinian-Arab descent. Contemporary political leadership associated Syria with the problem (and Syria bears a degree of responsibility for its creation). Jordan also bears a degree of consistency for the creation of the problem and, thanks to its lengthy illegal occupation of territory on the west bank of the Jordan, since disclaimed, initially assumed responsibility for the refugees living there.

They do want a "piece" plan: the whole piece from the river to the sea.

The Palestinian Arab century-long rejection of Jews, Judaism, Zionism, and the ancestral Jewish Homeland is the one and only obstacle preventing a solution to the Israeli/Palestinian Arab conflict; if that does not cease, then nothing else will change regardless of how generous an offer they are made. For as long as the Palestinian Arabs hold fast to their dystopian mindset and instil hatred and violence into the minds of successive generations of their children from the moment they are born the conflict cannot and will not be solved.

Not even by the largesse of foreign governments making generous promises of a future Palestinian State, established inside Israel's borders, with accompanying wealth, health, jobs, prosperity and the lives of ordinary Palestinian Arab citizens being made free from politically-driven violence and its consequences.

Palestinian leaders are making far too much money out of keep the conflict alive and at the centre of world attention -- travel through Judea, Samaria and Gaza and see the luxury houses in which they live, the luxury vehicles which they drive, the luxury restaurants in which they dine -- all paid for by foreign aid handouts mostly from naive, gormless Western Governments especially the EU and individual European countries. So why should the Palestinian Arab leadership give up all that luxury and millionaire bank accounts in exchange for their own tiny, impoverished State, established inside somebody's country, which will never produce anything other than fruit and vegetables.

If Donald Trump wanted to see a just settlement to the Israeli/Palestinian Arab conflict, he would have insisted that International Law was upheld and the Mandate for Palestine 1922 full implemented which gave ALL the territory from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea to the Jewish People in recognition of it being their ancestral National Homeland.

Placating, appeasing and giving in to the demands of Islamic terrorists are not the way to bring peace to any country or region. Peace only comes when the righteous are victorious over the warmongers, criminals and terrorists.

What a beautifully written article by Alain Destexhe. He describes the whole situation in this long standing stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians exactly, offering the best solution for both, especially the Palestinians who could benefit from Israeli expertise and not be kept from advancing. I often wonder if the Palestinians under Abbas are being used by a higher agenda as a distraction while their goal is to spread and impose Sharia Law throughout the world. If this is the case, then all the more reason for Israel to stay strong!

Doctors without borders generally against the Jewish State of Israel. Wow!

I do not believe there is a last chance for peace the odds get longer with the passing of time and last opportunities but there is no final act that murders hope. However, considering what became of the Arab Spring and with President Obama on the throne in dealing with Iran liberal ideas in the modern socialist Islamist context s forlorn hope. True revolution and peace will come from people wanting to be "Free" and insisting on reforms.

Liberal socialists criticize conservative religious institutions but much less Islam, they prefer to blame poverty and Western Institutions and religions that have flourished under capitalism. Instead of seeing Israel as an example of what may be accomplished by giving your people more freedom it is being characterized as a colonial aggressor the annihilation of which is necessary for the freedom and well being, progress of the Palestinians, but they have no blueprint for that and have fallen back on the tested and failed ideals of Islamic Caliphs. It s hard not to believe that this opportunity will not also slip through their fingers for lack of hope freedom as a spiritual value may be beyond their grasp, Omar and Tlaib certainly give us reason to believe that..

The two state proposition today is as an iceberg. Islamic Arabia willing to try out5 benefits from the technology and know how of the Jewish State. Palestinian State could pilot such rapprochement and exploitation of symbiotic benefits.. Abbas and cronies are scared they may lose control of a gold mine preferring to hold on to a coal mine Thieves like Abu Mazen, rather see his sons millionaires in autocratic camp than billionaires in a democratic state

Trump's Plan is doomed as any other previous or future plan requiring minimum of cooperation, mutual concessions or sincere will to come to mutual consent.
In my opinion What are here from reliable (private) Arab sources, the Palestinians plan to change orientation and bet on the UN, Russia and EU.

In the past seven decades the Arab Palestinians never missed to miss an opportunity for peace and prosperity.
Why would they behave this time in a different way?
Why would they give up the status of perpetual refugee, beggar, terrorist and martyr?
Unfortunately UNWRA, EU, the Arab League fostered those shameful policies in the past seven decades.
The Arab Palestinians must make a reality check and try to be sensible instead of outright rejecting the Deal of the Century.

They say that the Palestinians never pass up an opportunity to pass up an opportunity. I have no doubt they will keep to their straight path, going nowhere.

Three generations of Palestinian "refugees" have lived and died in the squalid pits of despair their Islamic "brothers" have relegated them to wallow in the misery of their victimization. They have been nurtured from birth to see Israel as having stolen their birthright.

Palestinians are predictable that could just replay the tape. Proof is that Hamas rejected Trump's proposal before it had been announced. Having turned down every concession offered, they deserve what they get.

Ideology? Palestinian leadership's ideology is power and theft.

The Trump plan is doomed to failure. Even agreement of Hamas leaders, Hezbollah aside, would not subdue the radical Islamists who would still perpetrate terrorist bombings and killings in Israel. More Palestinian traffic in Israel would increase access for the terrorists and increase Israeli deaths. I am not cynical, just honest. So long as Palestinians are pumped full of absurd hope of "right-of-return," and led by pure crooks like Abbas and pure terrorists like Hezbollah, there can be no stable peace.