Is Trump’s new Palestine plan a breakthrough or diplomatic mirage? : Shared by Tom McDermott

So far we have not yet seen the actual text of this 21 point plan.  As soon as it becomes available, we will post it.

Tom

 Is Trump’s new Palestine plan a breakthrough or diplomatic mirage?

Patrick Wintour
The Guardian

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Summary
Patrick Wintour examines Donald Trump’s new 21-point plan for Palestine, announced through U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, and its apparent convergence with the UN-backed New York declaration.

Optimists suggest that Jared Kushner and Tony Blair have influenced a shift in White House thinking, with Blair floated as a possible head of a transitional Gaza International Authority. Both plans reject mass displacement of Palestinians, exclude Hamas from governance but call for decommissioning of its weapons, and rule out new Israeli annexations — though the definition of “annexation” remains disputed.

However, key differences remain. The UN plan envisions a one-year technocratic transition followed by a unified Palestinian government under the Palestinian Authority (PA), while Trump’s proposal imposes conditions that could allow Israel to slow or block PA leadership. The U.S. position is complicated by its hostility to UNRWA, which the UN plan places at the center of reconstruction. Both approaches involve PA reform demands — new elections, ending payments to prisoners, and curriculum changes — that critics argue are politically unrealistic.

The plans also converge on an international stabilization force to oversee Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, secure borders, and train Palestinian security forces. Whether Netanyahu, who has resisted endorsing a Palestinian state, will accept any such vision remains unclear.

Quotes

• “Neither plan calls for the mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. The ‘Trump Riviera’ … is anathema to Egypt and Jordan.”

• “We do not want an armed state.” — Mahmoud Abbas at the UN General Assembly

• “What can be discussed – but hasn’t yet been decided – is implementing Israeli law on the Israeli communities located there and not under the PA.” — Gideon Sa’ar, Israel’s foreign minister

• “The reality is that no one can say what kind of Palestinian political leadership could emerge from the wasteland of Gaza and the burnt refugee camps of the West Bank.”