Is Leaked Document Trump's 'Deal of the Century?'
May 10, 2019
If genuine, the report published by an Israeli newspaper widely seen as
Netanyahu's mouthpiece offers a catastrophic vision of the Palestinians'
future, writes Jonathan Cook.
By Jonathan Cook
Jonathan-Cook.net
A report published this week by the Israel Hayom newspaper apparently
leaking details of President Donald Trump's "deal of the century" reads like
the kind of peace plan that might be put together by an estate agent or car
salesman.
But while the authenticity of the document is unproven and indeed contested,
there are serious grounds for believing it paves the direction of any future
declaration by the Trump administration.
Not least, it is a synthesis of most of the Israeli right's ambitions for
the creation of a Greater Israel, with a few sops to the Palestinians - most
of them related to partially relieving Israel's economic strangulation of
the Palestinian economy.
This is exactly what Jared Kushner told us the "deal of the century" would
look like in his preview last month.
Also significant is the outlet that published the leak: Israel Hayom. The
Israeli newspaper is owned by Sheldon Adelson, a U.S. casino billionaire who
is one of the Republican Party's chief donors and was a major contributor to
Trump's presidential election campaign funds.
Adelson: Owns the paper. (East Coast Gambler via Flickr)
Adelson is also a stalwart ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu. His newspaper has served as little more than a mouthpiece for
Netanyahu's ultra-nationalist governments over the past decade.
Netanyahu Leak?
Adelson and Israel Hayom have ready access to key figures in both the U.S.
and Israeli administrations. And it has been widely reported that little of
significance gets into print there unless it has first been approved by
Netanyahu or its overseas owner.
The newspaper questioned the authenticity and credibility of the document,
which has spread across social media platforms, even suggesting "it is quite
possible the document is fake" and that the Israeli foreign ministry was
looking into it.
The White House had already indicated that, after long delays, it intended
to finally unveil the "deal of the century" next month, after the holy
Muslim month of Ramadan finishes.
An unnamed White House official told the paper the leak was "speculative"
and "inaccurate" - the kind of lackluster denial that might equally mean the
report is, in fact, largely accurate.
If the document is genuine, Netanyahu looks to be the most likely culprit
behind the leak. He has overseen the foreign ministry for years and Israel
Hayomis widely referred to by Israelis as "Bibiton," or Bibi's newspaper,
employing the prime minister's nickname.
Testing the Waters
The alleged document, as published in Israel Hayom, would be
catastrophically bad for the Palestinians. Assuming Netanyahu approved the
document's leaking, his motives might not be too difficult to discern.
On one view, leaking it might be an effective way for Netanyahu and the
Trump administration to test the waters, to fly a trial balloon to see
whether they dare publish the document as it is, or need to make
modifications.
But another possibility is that Netanyahu may have concluded that there
could be an unwelcome price in publicly achieving most of what he is already
gaining by stealth - a price he may prefer to avoid for the time being.
Is the leak designed to foment pre-emptive opposition to the plan, both from
within Israel and from the Palestinians and the Arab world, in the hope of
stymieing its release?
The hope may be that the leak, and the reaction it elicits, forces Trump's
Middle East team to postpone yet again the plan's publication, or even foils
its release entirely.
Nonetheless, whether or not the "deal of the century" is unveiled soon, the
leaked document - if true - offers a plausible glimpse into the Trump
administration's thinking.
Given that Trump's Middle East team appear to have begun implementing the
plan over the past 18 months even without its publication - from moving the
U.S. embassy to Jerusalem to the recognition of Israel's illegal annexation
of the Syrian Golan Heights - the leak helps to shed light on how a
U.S.-Israeli "resolution" of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is likely to
unfold.
Pompeo tours U.S. embassy in Jerusalem with U.S. Ambassador to Israel David
Friedman, March 21, 2019. (State Department/Ron Przysucha via Flickr)
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tours U.S. embassy in Jerusalem with
U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, March 21, 2019. (State
Department/Ron Przysucha via Flickr)
Annexing the West Bank
The proposed Palestinian entity would be named "New Palestine" - apparently
taking a page out of the playbook of Tony Blair, Britain's former prime
minister who became the international community's Middle East envoy from
2007 to 2015.
Back in the 1990s, Blair filleted his own political party, Labour, of its
socialist heritage and then rebranded the resulting corporation-friendly
party, a pale shadow of its former self, as "New Labour."
The name "New Palestine" helpfully obscures the fact that this
de-militarized entity would lack the features and powers normally associated
with a state. According to the leak, New Palestine would exist on only a
tiny fraction of historic Palestine.
All illegal settlements in the West Bank would be annexed to Israel -
satisfying a pledge Netanyahu made shortly before last month's general
election. If the territory annexed includes most of Area C, the 62 percent
of the West Bank Israel was given temporary control over under the Oslo
accords, and which the Israeli right urgently wants to annex, that would
leave New Palestine nominally in charge of about 12 percent of historic
Palestine.
Map showing Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Territories.
Or put another way, the Trump administration appears to be ready to give its
blessing to a Greater Israel comprising 88 percent of the land stolen from
Palestinians over the past seven decades.
But it is far worse than that. New Palestine would exist as a series of
discrete cantons, or Bantustans, surrounded by a sea of Israeli settlements
- now to be declared part of Israel. The entity would be chopped and diced
in a way that is true of no other state in the world.
New Palestine would have no army, just a lightly armed police force. It
would be able to act only as a series of disconnected municipalities.
In fact, it is hard to imagine how "New Palestine" would fundamentally
change the current, dismal reality for Palestinians. They would be able to
move between these cantons only using lengthy detours, bypass roads and
tunnels. Much like now.
Glorified Municipalities
The only silver lining offered in the alleged document is a proposed bribe
from the U.S., Europe, other developed states, though mostly financed by the
oil-rich Gulf states, to salve their consciences for defrauding the
Palestinians of their land and sovereignty.
These states will provide $30 billion over five years to help New Palestine
set up and run its glorified municipalities. If that sounds like a lot of
money, remember it is $8 billion less than the decade-long aid the U.S. is
currently giving Israel to buy arms and fighter jets.
What happens to New Palestine after that five-year period is unclear in the
document. But given that the 12 percent of historic Palestine awarded to the
Palestinians is the region's most resource-poor territory - stripped by
Israel of water sources, economic coherence, and key exploitable resources
like the West Bank's quarries - it is hard not to see the entity sinking
rather swimming after the initial influx of money dries up.
Even if the international community agrees to stump up more money, New
Palestine would be entirely aid dependent in perpetuity.
The U.S. and others would be able to turn on and off the spigot based on the
Palestinians' "good behavior" - just as occurs now.
Palestinians would live permanently in fear of the repercussions for
criticizing their prison warders. In keeping with his vow to make Mexico pay
for the wall to be built along the southern U.S. border, Trump apparently
wants the Palestinian entity to pay Israel to provide it with military
security. In other words, much of that $30 billion in aid to the
Palestinians would probably end up in the Israeli military's pockets.
Bethlehem and West Bank. (Dennis Jarvis via Flickr)
Interestingly, the leaked report argues that oil-producing states, not the
Palestinians, would be the "main beneficiaries" of the agreement. This hints
at how the Trump deal is being sold to the Gulf states: as an opportunity
for them to fully embrace Israel, its technology and military prowess, so
that the Middle East can follow in the footsteps of Asia's "tiger
economies."
Ethnic Cleansing in Jerusalem
Jerusalem is described as a "shared capital," but the small print reads
rather differently. Jerusalem would not be divided into a Palestinian east
and an Israeli west, as most had envisaged. Instead, the city will be run by
a unified Israeli-run municipality. Just as happens now.
The only meaningful concession to the Palestinians would be that Israelis
would not be allowed to buy Palestinian homes, preventing - in theory, at
least - a further takeover of East Jerusalem by Jewish settlers.
But given that in return Palestinians would not be allowed to buy Israeli
homes, and that the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem already suffers
massive housing shortages and that an Israeli municipality would have the
power to decide where homes are built and for whom, it is easy to imagine
that the current situation - of Israel exploiting planning controls to drive
Palestinians out of Jerusalem - would simply continue.
Also, given that Palestinians in Jerusalem would be citizens of New
Palestine, not Israel, those unable to find a home in Israeli-ruled
Jerusalem would have no choice but to emigrate into the West Bank. That
would be exactly the same form of bureaucratic ethnic cleansing that
Palestinians in Jerusalem experience now.
Gaza Open to Sinai
Echoing recent comments from Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and Middle
East adviser, the plan's benefits for Palestinians all relate to potential
economic dividends, not political ones.
Palestinians will be allowed to labor in Israel, as was the norm before Oslo
- and presumably, as before, only in the most poorly paid and precarious
jobs, on building sites and agricultural land.
A land corridor, doubtlessly overseen by Israeli military contractors the
Palestinians must pay for, is supposed to connect Gaza to the West Bank.
Confirming earlier reports of the Trump administration's plans, Gaza would
be opened up to the world, and an industrial zone and airport created in the
neighboring territory of Sinai.
Wall between Israel and Palestine, Anata, West Bank. (Dafna Kaplan via
Flickr)
The land - its extent to be decided in negotiations - would be leased from
Egypt.
Helpfully for Israel, as has previously been pointed out, such a move risks
gradually encouraging Palestinians to view Sinai as the center of their
lives rather than Gaza - another way to slowly ethnically cleanse them.
Meanwhile, the West Bank would be connected to Jordan by two border
crossings - probably via land corridors through the Jordan Valley, which
itself is to be annexed to Israel. Again, with Palestinians squeezed into
disconnected cantons surrounded by Israeli territory, the assumption must be
that over time many would seek a new life in Jordan.
Palestinian political prisoners would be released from Israeli jails to the
authority of New Palestine over three years. But the plan says nothing about
a right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees - descended from
those who were expelled from their homes in the 1948 and 1967 wars.
Gun to Their Heads
Don Corleo
