President Trump has spoken repeatedly about his desire to find the "deal of the century" to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While the president's specific plan remains a tightly held secret, he and several aides occasionally drop hints about it. From what one can tell, it doesn't sound good.
The first theme of Mr. Trump's comments is neutrality toward Israel and the Palestinians. He had already expressed that in December 2015, when he insisted both sides "are going to have to make sacrifices" to achieve peace, and he has made many similar comments since. Mr. Trump seems not to recall that Israel has repeatedly made concessions since 1993, including turning over land and permitting a Palestinian police corps, only to be met with heightened Palestinian intransigence and violence.
President Trump and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem, May 23, 2017. |
A tilt toward the Palestinians emerged as the second theme of Mr. Trump's comments in December 2017. Speaking with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, Mr. Trump described himself, in the New Yorker's words, as "committed to getting the Palestinians the best possible deal" and emphasized that "Israel would make real concessions." Mr. Abbas would get a better deal from him than from President Obama, Mr. Trump reportedly said more than once.
That same month, Mr. Trump announced he would move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. But this was not a gift to the Jewish state. "Israel will pay for that," Mr. Trump explained publicly; indeed, in a future deal Israel "would have . . . to pay more" than the Palestinians.
In February 2018, Mr. Trump was back to equivalence: "Both sides will have to make hard compromises," he said, and while "the Palestinians are not looking to make peace . . . I am not necessarily sure that Israel is looking to make peace."
Then in August 2018, Mr. Trump said, "In the negotiation, Israel will have to pay a higher price because they won a very big thing," an allusion to the embassy move. The Palestinians, however, will "get something very good, because it's their turn next."
Also in September, according to Israel's Channel 10, Mr. Trump emphasized this point to France's President Emmanuel Macron: "I can be tough with Netanyahu on the peace plan, just like I've been tough on the Palestinians." When Mr. Macron suggested the Israeli prime minister prefers the status quo to a peace deal, Mr. Trump reportedly replied, "I'm very close to reaching that same conclusion."
Significantly, Mr. Trump portrayed harsh U.S. steps against the Palestinian Authority, such as cutting its funding, not as principled pro-Israel moves but as pressure on the Palestinians to negotiate: "I was tough on the Palestinians because they wouldn't talk to us," he told Mr. Macron. Presumably these steps would be reversed once Mr. Abbas or a successor comes to the table, as seems inevitable given how much the Palestinians stand to gain.
Jason Greenblatt, Mr. Trump's special representative for international negotiations, reverted in October 2018 to the theme of neutrality, announcing that the deal will "be heavily focused on Israeli security needs, but we also want to be fair to the Palestinians." "Each side will find things in this plan that they don't like," he said.
Nikki Haley, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, alluded to the pro-Palestinian tilt in December 2018, noting that "both sides would benefit greatly from a peace agreement, but the Palestinians would benefit more, and the Israelis would risk more."
This drumbeat of comments—about neutrality, suspicion of Netanyahu and expecting Israel to make the larger concessions—signals a potential crisis in U.S.-Israel relations, perhaps the most intense since 1975, when Gerald Ford began his "reassessment" of the relationship, or possibly even 1957, when Dwight Eisenhower coerced Israel to evacuate the Sinai Peninsula.
Should Israel reject a U.S. plan, the full weight of Mr. Trump's wrath could well follow. As he recently showed with Turkey, when displeased the president can radically shift relations: He pivoted from a warm and trusting conversation with the Turkish president on Dec. 14, 2018, to a threat to "devastate Turkey economically" on Jan. 13. Likewise, Mr. Trump's ambassador to Israel may call him "the most pro-Israel president ever," but he could become Israel's chief adversary if its leaders anger him. Were this to happen, the Palestinians would become great beneficiaries of Mr. Trump's favor.
So far, the administration's hints have aroused minimal concern in the American pro-Israel community, which blithely but wrongly trusts Mr. Trump as one of their own. But a plan as inimical to Israel as Mr. Trump's appears to be will have major negative implications not only for the Jewish state but for Mr. Trump's re-election hopes. Therefore, Americans who support Israel and Republicans hoping for the president's re-election both need to protest and obstruct the prospect of this misbegotten "deal of the century."
Mr. Pipes is president of the Middle East Forum.
Jan. 24, 2019 addenda: (1) For a collection of leaks about the Trump plan, click here.
(2) For reasons of space, I excluded a number of other references to the Trump plan from the above article; I add these here so that all the evidence is available. To start with, comments by American officials (all dates are 2018):
Aug. 29: U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman sought to soften Trump's Aug. 22 "higher price" comment by portraying it as a friendly gesture where Trump asks the Israelis, "Look, can you do a little bit more? Look what we did for you. Is there's something more that you could do?" Friedman insisted that "It's not that he has something specific in mind," but the Israelis could help "by leaning in a little bit as well. ... There is not and there never was any demand made of Israel that they do anything in exchange for the embassy move."
Sep. 26: Trump raised another theme: that the embassy move requires that "Israel will have to do something that will be good for the other side." This was notable in that he expects Jerusalem to join the U.S. government "to do something" for the PA; in other words, the Jewish state must not just "pay a higher price" but take positive steps of its own to win Palestinian good will. With a burst of moral equivalence, Trump optimistically added, "I think that Israel wants to do something, and I think that the Palestinians actually want to do something" to reach "a fair deal ... good for both parties."
Sep. 13: Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt alluded to moral equivalence: "We're going to have to defend the plan to Israelis and Palestinians. We are ready for criticism from all sides."
Oct. 8: Israeli media quoted an anonymous American official: Trump's plan "will not require Israeli security concessions, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have to demonstrate leadership and make difficult decisions."
Nov. 10: Greenblatt returned to the theme of neutrality at a closed-door meeting in November 2018. Israeli media quoted him saying that neither side will like what's in Trump's plan, both will have to compromise.
Israeli officials have been wary of discussing the deal but have made occasional statements, all negative:
May 6: Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman noted, "There is no free lunch. ... There will be a price for the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem."
Oct. 1: Yossi Beilin, a former minister of justice and leftist, is positive toward the plan, noting that Trump's ideas are "apparently much closer to the one promoted by Abbas than to Netanyahu's" and sees the latter as the odd man out in the triangular relationship with Trump.
Oct. 23: In response to Trump's comments on possibly sharing Jerusalem as a capital, Israel's Minister of Education Naftali Bennett said no: "As long as we're in the Israeli government, we won't agree to a divided Jerusalem, or to a shared capital. It took us years to extricate ourselves from the hole created by Barak and Olmert with their hallucinatory suggestions, granting to the Palestinians the Temple Mount. As long as we're in Jerusalem, we won't permit any concession of Israeli sovereignty. ... There won't be a joint capital in Jerusalem even in 1,000 years."
Greenblatt, Friedman, Kushner and Netanyahu smiled in Sep. 2018; will they still be smiling in 2019? |
Oct. 25: Israelis at large may be oblivious to the looming tensions but, according to Amnon Lord in Israel HaYom, "sources close to Netanyahu expect a moment of intense debate with the Trump administration, if not a political confrontation."
Nov. 21: Minister of Justice Ayalet Shaked was the most negative of Israeli officials: "I think that the gap between the Israelis and Palestinians is much too big to be bridged. Personally, I think [the Trump peace plan] is a waste of time. I want peace like anyone else, but right now it's a waste of time."
Jan. 28, 2019 update: It appears that Prime Minister Netanyahu has preemptively rejected one of the Trump plan's reported provisions, that Israelis living in smaller towns on the West Bank must abandon their residences. Standing near Netiv Ha'avot, addressing some of the Israelis forced by Israel's High Court of Justice to abandon their 15 homes last year, he stated:
As far as I am concerned, no more settlements will be uprooted, but rather the exact opposite. The Land of Israel is ours and it will stay ours. What fell, will be rebuilt. There are those who think that the way to achieve peace with the Arabs is to uproot us from our homes, but as long as it is up to me, it will never happen.
Comment: I speculate that Netanyahu figures it's better to reject this condition (1) before it's publicly announced and (2) in the context of Israel's election season. I doubt these facts will help once he's facing Trump. Just my opinion.
Feb. 1, 2019 update: Nadav Shragai points to the astonishing lack of debate, especially in election season, over the impeding Trump plan coming in the spring or summer, a plan he expects will cost Israel dearly on issues pertaining to what Shragai calls "the very core of our existence here – Jerusalem, security and defense, and the settlement enterprise." In fact, "there has been absolutely no practical or ideological discussion of the impending 'diplomatic typhoon'."
The eerie quiet prompts Shragai to ask if "understandings been reached between Netanyahu and the Trump administration regarding the deal of the century? And if so, what are they?" He calls for
An outcry from the Right that would break the corruption investigation's monopoly over our election campaign would not only not harm Netanyahu, it would do him good. It would also serve to soften the Trump proposal and show the Americans just how difficult it will be to force a plan on the Israeli public that harms the integrity of Jerusalem and the settlements in Judea and Samaria.
On the eve of an event set to decide the fate of Jerusalem and the land of Israel, any election campaign that makes no mention of the diplomatic campaign in store is crippled and flawed. Now is the time to ask the right questions and demand answers.
Jun. 22, 2019 update: Joe Dyke notes in "No, Trump doesn't call Mideast plan 'deal of the century'" that it was Egypt's Sisi that used this phrase, which then was attributed to Trump. Dyke cites the above article as one of the original sources for the phrase.