April 14, 2019

Trump peace package for Middle East likely to stop short of Palestinian statehood

Source: The Washington Post

Journalists: Anne Gearan, Souad Mekhennet

President Trump’s proposal for a “deal of the century” to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict promises practical improvements in the lives of Palestinians but is likely to stop short of ensuring a separate, fully sovereign Palestinian state, according to people familiar with the main elements of the effort.

The White House is expected to roll out its long-anticipated peace package later this spring or by early summer, after more than two years of effort by Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Officials have kept details of the plan secret, but comments from Kushner and other U.S. officials suggest that it does away with statehood as the starting premise of peace efforts as it has been over the past two decades.

The plan would represent Trump’s effort to put his stamp on diplomacy in a conflict that has festered since 1948, and it is likely to focus heavily on Israeli security concerns. Trump has told friends he wants to upend traditional assumptions about how to resolve the conflict, but unlike in his un­or­tho­dox personal diplomacy with North Korea, Trump has largely outsourced the Middle East peace effort to his son-in-law.

Read the full article and more in The Washington Post.

Author

  • Ilan Goldenberg

    Former Senior Fellow and Director, Middle East Security Program

    Ilan Goldenberg is the former Senior Fellow and Director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. He is a foreign policy and defense expe...