The plan for Israel and the Palestinians put forward by the Trump administration has lost some momentum amid the coronavirus pandemic and the protests against police brutality. Yet getting this plan across the finish line is a crucial step for building President Trump’s foreign policy legacy.
The advantage of this plan over the many previous ones is that it recognizes that the Palestinians cannot be entrusted with a state so long as they don’t take the most elementary steps toward co-existence with Israel — recognizing its existence, disarming terror groups, not paying terrorists for killing Israelis, removing anti-Semitic propaganda from their schoolbooks. Skipping this step, as previous plans have attempted to do, is a proven recipe for failure.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted the Trump plan as a basis for negotiations. Based on past experience, Israelis do not expect that the Palestinians will meet any of the minimal conditions. Nevertheless, Israel is willing to give them yet another chance if the Trump administration ensures the plan’s implementation does not blow up in our faces the way previous plans have.
There is the danger that future U.S. administrations could revert to granting the Palestinians a reprieve from fulfilling any conditions but still hold Israel to its obligations.
To mitigate this danger partially, the Trump administration should work with Israel to ensure the immediate application and recognition of Israeli sovereignty in those parts of Judea and Samaria that will remain under Israeli control regardless of future developments.
Some in the Arab world have threatened dire responses if, with American support, Israel were to carry out this extension of sovereignty. But such threats were also made before the move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and the U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the Golan, and they proved hollow. Israel’s ties with the Arab world have in fact grown stronger throughout all this because they are based on mutual interests, not fond affection.
Those interests, principally cooperation against the existential threat of Iran, are in no way affected by Israel’s planned action.
There are also friends of Israel concerned that such an extension of sovereignty, as a first step in implementing the Trump plan, might be interpreted as both giving up hope for Israeli sovereignty in other parts of the Jewish heartland and as agreement in principle to a Palestinian state that could threaten Israel’s security.
But these legitimate concerns should not be met by abandoning the once-in-a-century opportunity to strengthen Israeli sovereignty. Rather, the plan must be clarified to remedy its weaknesses.
The maps attached to the plan must be significantly improved. Most importantly, the United States must commit to preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state so long as the conditions set out in the plan are not met. If the administration puts such understandings into a formal agreement with Israel that would also apply under a future administration, the concerns of Israel’s supporters in the U.S. would be addressed.
The Trump administration has been a great friend of Israel and has done more to bring peace and prosperity to the region than any previous administration. Now is the time to redouble those efforts.
Professor Moshe Koppel is the chairman of the Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum, Israel’s largest think tank.
