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Donald Trump's Staged Peace Plan Announcement

By Jeralyn, Section Trump Administration
Posted on Tue Jan 28, 2020 at 12:22:21 PM EST
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Donald Trump must be desperate to misdirect the world's attention from his impeachment trial. Today he upstaged his defense counsel by holding a presser with Benjamin Natanyahu to announce his middle-east peace plan.

He called it a two party solution but it is not.

Via the New York Times:

Rather than a serious blueprint for peace, analysts called it a political document by a president in the middle of an impeachment trial working in tandem with a prime minister under criminal indictment and facing his third election in a year in barely over a month.

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    Donald Trump's Staged Peace Plan Announcement | 16 comments (16 topical)

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    It was as much to (none / 0) (#1)
    by CaptHowdy on Tue Jan 28, 2020 at 01:52:57 PM EST
    Pull Beebees chestnuts out of the fire as it was Trump.  It just looked desperate.  On all sides.

    Agreed. This is a political distraction. (none / 0) (#2)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Tue Jan 28, 2020 at 02:05:06 PM EST
    Trump's so-called peace plan won't be going anywhere for a myriad of reasons, which include his administration's unilateral countermanding of decades of bipartisan U.S. policy toward Israel with its public announcement recognizing Jerusalem as that country's capital, the related relocation of our U.S. embassy to that city from Tel Aviv, and our continued support for the Netanyahu regime's ongoing seizure of Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank.

    Sad to say but hardly surprising, given Trump's role here as a perpetually bad actor, the Palestinians no longer trust the United States to be an honest broker in any negotiations with the Israelis because quite obviously, we're not. Decades of painstaking work by several U.S. presidents (starting with Jimmy Carter) and countless members of our diplomatic corps were just summarily cast aside by these Trumpist know-nothings. It will take many years to repair the damage to our relations and reputation in the region.

    Aloha.

    Cynicism is a harsh reaction (none / 0) (#3)
    by KeysDan on Tue Jan 28, 2020 at 04:33:22 PM EST
    to efforts to address an intractable matter, but it is, in this case, warranted.  The immediate rejection of the Trump plan by Mahmoud Abbas is unsurprising not only on the basis of the outcome, but also, the process.

    Indeed, the plan for something may be worse than nothing, even though, in my view, there are several elements of the plan that could be a basis for discussion deploying less unreconstructed politics and more Diplomacy 101.

    Any primer should have warned of the long-standing sticking point: the Capitol: the Trump plan calls for an "undivided Jerusalem" for Israel and an East Jerusalem neighborhood, beyond separation barriers, for a Palestinian state. Trump's politically expedient and impulsive relocation of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was not helpful to a balanced negotiation casting primal doubt on even-handedness by the US.

    Am I to understand that the (none / 0) (#4)
    by desertswine on Tue Jan 28, 2020 at 05:23:16 PM EST
    Palestinians had no input into this so-called "peace plan?"  And that they're in a take-it-or-leave-it situation?  If that's the case, then this plan is going nowhere fast.  It's merely window dressing for both Trump and Netanyahu.

    How do you announce a peace plan (5.00 / 2) (#7)
    by Chuck0 on Wed Jan 29, 2020 at 12:57:59 PM EST
    and not even invite one of the parties involved to the announcement? This announcement is a farce. This what Jared has been working on for three years? Find him a cell somewhere in Israel next to Bibi.


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    CAUTION: Cliché Ahead. (none / 0) (#9)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Wed Jan 29, 2020 at 01:46:25 PM EST
    "Never send a boy to do a man's job."

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    It's worse than you think (none / 0) (#5)
    by CaptHowdy on Tue Jan 28, 2020 at 05:39:22 PM EST
    Palestinians Reject Trump `Peace Plan' As Netanyahu Pushes Annexation



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    What CaptHowdy said. (none / 0) (#8)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Wed Jan 29, 2020 at 01:43:30 PM EST
    Since this so-called agreement consents to Israel's summary annexation of the Jordan River Valley and about 30% of the occupied West Bank, I think an appropriate historical analogy -- setting aside for the moment that it's also a Nazi analogy, which I generally try to shun -- is the infamous Munich Agreement of September 1938, in which Great Britain and France offered up to Nazi Germany the Sudetenland region of then-Czechoslovakia.

    To secure that agreement, London and Paris exerted enormous diplomatic pressure on Prague to assent to Adolf Hitler's "generous terms" and surrender the Sudetenland in exchange for an "ironclad guarantee" of Czechoslovakia's new borders, thus (temporarily) securing what British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (rather naïvely) called "peace in our time" upon his (fleetingly) triumphant return to Parliament in Westminster.

    But in our present Middle East predicament, the Trump administration never even bothered to consult with the Palestinian Authority and President Mahmoud Abbas before agreeing to give away nearly one-third of its territory to Israel, as though that territory were ever somehow ours to barter away in the first place.

    We ought to recall the rest of the Munich Agreement's story. In March 1939, only six months after the pact was signed by all parties, Nazi Germany nonchalantly flouted that accord's provisions regarding Czechoslovakia's independence and unilaterally annexed the rump remainder of that country outright.

    Having thus been so easily duped by Hitler, Britain and France immediately entered into a mutual defense alignment with Poland, which set the stage for the by-then inevitable outbreak of the Second World War in Europe when the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.

    Aloha.

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    Did I say that? (5.00 / 1) (#11)
    by CaptHowdy on Wed Jan 29, 2020 at 02:14:03 PM EST
    I wish I had.

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    You posted a link ... (none / 0) (#13)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Wed Jan 29, 2020 at 04:14:20 PM EST
    ... that directly referenced Prime Minister Netanyahu's proposed annexation of Palestinian territory, an act which appears to piggyback on Trump's introduction of his so-called peace plan. So, yeah, you did say that.

    Netanyahu announced just a few hours ago that Sunday's cabinet vote on the annexation has been postponed. In light of the fierce international blowback, some of his colleagues may be having second thoughts. If so, that's good. Netanyahu's proposed action is both reckless and destabilizing.

    Aloha.

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    Meant it in (none / 0) (#14)
    by CaptHowdy on Wed Jan 29, 2020 at 04:26:26 PM EST
    A good way.  

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    I know you did. (none / 0) (#15)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Wed Jan 29, 2020 at 06:26:10 PM EST
    This is a serious issue. Our country's reputation in the Middle East has taken a series of major body blows under the last two Republican administrations, thanks in no small part to our invasion of Iraq, our unquestioning support of an increasingly right-wing Israeli government, and our unholy alliance with the 21st century autocratic feudalism that's Saudi Arabia. I doubt it will ever recover in our lifetimes. Our best long-term interests at this point likely require our disengagement from the region.

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    From the "Other Mustachio", (none / 0) (#6)
    by KeysDan on Wed Jan 29, 2020 at 10:34:19 AM EST
    Tom Friedman (NYTimes, January 29, "Is Trump Bibi's Chump?)  Is this plan about two states for two peoples or is it about one diversion for two dirty leaders?  It feels like the latter, he continues. And, the timing "smells".

    We can always count on Tom Friedman ... (5.00 / 1) (#10)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Wed Jan 29, 2020 at 01:48:52 PM EST
    ... to state the obvious.

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    How does (5.00 / 1) (#12)
    by KeysDan on Wed Jan 29, 2020 at 02:42:35 PM EST
    that go?   A stopped clock.. something, something.

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    Haven't heard from him lately (none / 0) (#16)
    by Abdul Abulbul Amir on Thu Jan 30, 2020 at 01:00:59 PM EST

    On how great the ChiComs are on environmental issues.

    Parent
    Donald Trump's Staged Peace Plan Announcement | 16 comments (16 topical)

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