Trump’s Everything but Peace Plan for the Middle East

Guest blogger: Maraika Kuipers-Sharsher, graduate student, Migration Studies Program, University of San Francisco

The Trump Administration’s Peace Plan promotes nothing but violence and apartheid policies, supporting Israeli illegal annexation of the West Bank, effectively crushing the hopes of millions of Palestinians for justice and return to their homeland.  The United States has decided to give the green light to Israel’s annexation of illegal settlements in the occupied West bank in late January but has largely gone unnoticed due to the corona virus pandemic sweeping the world.  Support for Israeli annexation was usually a key political goal for the extreme right wing, but recently has made it into mainstream Israeli politics, and is now closer than ever with Trump’s support. Along with this annexation comes the question of Palestinians in Israel with Israeli citizenship.  This large Palestinian majority makes up 1 in 5 of the country’s population, who descended from families who managed to survive the ethnic cleansing that forced out over 750,000 Palestinians in 1948.  These mass expulsions that occurred both in 1948 and 1967 are continuing today with home demolitions carried out by the Israeli defense forces that render Palestinian families homeless and without legal recourse to object or appeal the action taken against them.  With increased home demolitions, the building of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, and the rise of fascist policies of forced ethnic transfers, dreams of a two-state solution will never become reality.  But was that ever on the table?  Benjamin Netanyahu has continuously stated that he does not want a two state solution and will never give up control of settlements build in the occupied West Bank.  Along with the empty promise of a two state solution came the “Peace to Prosperity” Document that allows Israel to strip its Palestinian citizens of their status as well as perform a populated land swap with the settlements.  The idea is to transfer Palestinians residing in the Israel into the West Bank, solidifying the apartheid regime that divides its people based on race, nationality, and religion.  The Israeli government has never been shy about their desire for an exclusively Jewish nation.  This is demonstrated by their obvious disregard for the native Palestinian population in the forms of segregated checkpoints, the apartheid concrete wall, and the ruthless murdering of Palestinians in cold blood, just for existing.

What makes this plan even more frightening is the United States’ unquestioning support of Israel and its fascist policies under the Trump administration.  Netanyahu began to lobby former president Barack Obama for this plan of ethnic cleansing as early as 2014, where he argued that this plan would dramatically reduce Israel’s Palestinian minority from a fifth of the population down to 12 percent (Maariv Newspaper). He then reintroduced it in 2017, now a primary political goal and conversation within Israeli American partnerships. 

Although, this plan of ethnic transfer is viewed as illegal in International law, constituting a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention, but this is not important, for Israel disregards international law and human rights daily.   After all, the country was illegally taken from its native population, and is constantly sanctioned by the United Nations for their crimes.  The Israeli foreign ministry tried to justify its crime in 2014 by arguing that the “population exchange” would require either the support of effected Palestinians or approval of the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas.  It is no surprise that polls show that a majority of Palestinian citizens are against the plan.  This ethnic transfer would tear families apart, separate the affected people from their jobs, schools, as well as their historic lands.  The Israeli government is treating its Palestinian citizens like disposable objects, forcing them into ghettos, generations in concentration camps unable to leave or return to their lands.  This sounds vaguely familiar. 

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