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Troubador Publishing Ltd - Neville Teller

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70 pages

English

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"I would love to be the one who made peace with Israel and the Palestinians," said Donald J Trump, as he assumed the presidency of the United States of America on Friday, 20 January 2017. ''That would be such a great achievement."Trump and the Holy Land: 2016-2020is the history of that effort. Starting with pledges Trump made during his presidential electioncampaign, it traces the development of what he termed "the deal of the century" from its inception to its final unveiling on 28 January2020. The account of its evolution is set against the backdrop of a turbulent Middle East including such seminal events as Trump'srecognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and his relocating the US embassy there. These, and much more, provide the setting for theslow emergence of the peace plan - events such as the defeat of the Islamic State caliphate, Trump's withdrawal from the Iraniannuclear deal, the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, and the discovery of vast gas and oil reserves in Israeli waters.The story of the origins, the development, and the unveiling of the "deal of the century" can be seen and judged effectively only withinthe context of the ever-shifting political kaleidoscope.Trump and the Holy Land: 2016-2020does just that.

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Israel

Middle East

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Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	21 juillet 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781838596507
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0300€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Neville Teller was born in London, read Modern History at Oxford University, and then had a varied career in marketing, general management, publishing, the Civil Service and a national cancer charity. At the same time he was consistently writing for BBC radio as dramatist and abridger. In the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2006 he was awarded an MBE “for services to broadcasting and to drama.”
He began writing about the Middle East in the 1980s, sometimes using the pen-name Edmund Owen. He has published four books on the subject, is the Middle East correspondent for the Eurasia Review, and his articles appear regularly in various publications and on-line. He writes the blog A Mid-East Journal ( www.a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com ).
Also by Neville Teller

One Man’s Israel
One Year in the History of Israel and Palestine
The Search for Détente: Israel and Palestine 2012-2014
The Chaos in the Middle East: 2014-2016

Copyright © 2020 Neville Teller

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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For Sheila and the family
Contents
Foreword
1 Intentions and first steps (October-March 2017)
2 An unsettled Middle East (April – May 2017)
3 Developing the strategy (May-September 2017)
4 Action and aftermath (October-December 2017)
5 Awaiting the opportune moment (January – June 2018)
6 Complications (July-December 2018)
7 Still under wraps (January-June 2019)
8 The economic offer (June – July 2019)
9 Hiatus (August 2019 – January 2020)
10 The unveiling (28 January 2020)
Foreword
Donald J Trump assumed the presidency of the United States of America on Friday, 20 January 2017. Over the 241 years of its existence there had never been a more controversial contender for that office. What split the nation during the election campaign, and continued to do so during his presidency, was not so much Trump’s politics – though they were certainly not to everyone’s taste – as his personality. Indeed, scarcely a politician at all, he was certainly not a presidential candidate in the traditional mould. He was essentially a successful go-getting entrepreneur and showman, with many of the characteristics, good and bad, of the high-powered business leader.
Whatever his faults though, Trump possessed one attribute that many of his most impassioned enemies, as well as his closest allies, were generally agreed on – he was an accomplished deal-maker. He had mastered the craft of finessing negotiations. Deal-making had been the key to his business success which. though controversial, had been considerable. And way back in the 1980s he had co-authored “The Art of the Deal”, a treatise which reached number 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list, and stayed there for 13 weeks.
So during Trump’s presidential election campaign, when he was considering the complex political agenda he would face if he gained office, it was perhaps the deal-making potential of the perennial Israel-Palestinian situation that particularly attracted his attention. Highly skilled as he was in the arcane arts of wheeling and dealing, the possibility of brokering a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians – an endeavour attempted without success by so many of his predecessors in office – engaged Trump’s interest from early on.
On the campaign trail back in February 2016 Trump, with what seems like relish, spelled out the challenge it would pose. “That’s probably the toughest deal in the world right now to make,” he said, in his inimitable style. “It’s possible it’s not makeable because, don’t forget, it has to last. A lot of people say an agreement can’t be made, which is OK – sometimes agreements can’t be made. I will give it one hell of a shot. I would say if you can do that deal, you can do any deal.”
A week or two later there were rumours of a UN Security Council resolution in the making, aimed at setting out the terms for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. Vehement in his opposition to this initiative, Trump took the opportunity to set out his own deal-making philosophy.
“Let me be clear: An agreement imposed by the United Nations would be a total and complete disaster. The United States must oppose this resolution and use the power of our veto, which I will use as president 100 percent. When people ask why, it’s because that’s not how you make a deal. Deals are made when parties come together, they come to a table and they negotiate. Each side must give up something [of] … value in exchange for something that it requires. That’s what a deal is… That’s not going to happen with the United Nations. ..”
Later in the campaign, as Trump earmarked his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to lead the peace-making effort, he said: “I would love to be the one who made peace with Israel and the Palestinians. That would be such a great achievement.”
Once in the White House, Trump placed the Israel-Palestinian dispute high on his agenda. Within five weeks of taking office he had invited Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to Washington, and in a media conference made it clear that – in classic deal-maker mode – he was less interested in any particular formula than in actually achieving an agreement. Thus, putting clear blue water between himself and the global consensus, he would neither endorse the classic two-state solution as the only possible way to resolve the conflict, nor would he rule it out.
Indeed, in its classic configuration the two-state solution was probably no longer viable, given the political circumstances. It would have left a new sovereign Palestine, sited on the West Bank and East Jerusalem, entirely vulnerable to infiltration and eventual takeover either by Hamas, or by Islamic State. It would have left up to 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip still under the rule of the rejectionist Hamas organization which, despite trivial amendments to its charter in May 2017, remained intent on obliterating Israel, and thus resolved on perpetual conflict. And it would have left Israel with an unstable next-door neighbour that could be subject to a coup at any time, just as occurred in Gaza, with the inevitable consequence of indiscriminate rocket and missile attacks on Israeli citizens, and another defensive war.
Trump realized early on that if it had to be two states, it needed to be two states supported at least by an Arab consensus. It would probably also need to be fortified by some unassailable political, or even legal structure. Something along those lines is what deal-maker Trump might possibly have envisaged, emerging from a procedure which identified pragmatically what each side really needed, and built on a willingness by both to engage in the deal-making process.
Curiously enough, precisely the same possibility was voiced by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas in September 2018 – an incident described in detail later in this volume.
In the preliminary stages of his peace-making enterprise, even before Trump met with Netanyahu, the US administration was reported to have held discussions with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan about a “regional umbrella” to cover and shield possible Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Another important step towards getting a Middle East peace summit off the ground was Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s visit to Riyadh on 23 April 2017, to bury the hatchet with Saudi King Salman. This visit, it was reliably reported, was set up by then-US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and, among other burning issues, it dealt with Trump’s initiative for an Arab-led Palestinian peace deal with Israel. Al-Sisi’s visit was to have significant consequences only a few months later, when Egypt allied itself with the Gulf states in demanding that Qatar renounce its support for Islamist extremists and Hamas.
Then, early in May 2017, Trump invited Abbas to the White House. In their subsequent press conference they vowed to work together to strike a peace deal with Israel that would bring stability to the Middle East.
“We will get it done,” said Trump. “We will be working so hard to get it done. It’s been a long time. But we will be working diligently.”
“I very much look forward to working with you,” replied Abbas, “in order to come to that historical agreement, historic deal to bring about peace.”
Sweet words which were soon to turn sour. Although in his election campaign Trump had signalled his intention of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and of moving the American embassy there, mention of these pledges was not permitted to spoil the show of unanimity. It was only when Trump actually carried out the recognition pledge in December 2017 that Abbas turned on him.
At the time though, intent on carrying through his deal-making intention, one day after his meeting with Abbas Trump announced that he would visit the