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Steal of the Century

President Trump’s Deal of the Century to solve the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict is no different from the many previous deals and declarations that
have tried to determine the fate of the Palestinian people.

By Imran Jan | April 2020

One of the first things the newly elected President Trump vowed to do was to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2017, he said, “I think we are going to make a Deal. It might be a bigger and better Deal than the people in this room even understand.” One is not sure about the people in the room that day, but the rest of the world is certainly flabbergasted because the ‘Deal of the Century’ has been announced by President Trump and it is a Deal in which one party did not even have a seat at the table. Trump said at the time, “Both sides will have to make compromises” but, it is clear, only the Palestinians have been forced to make compromises.

The Deal allows the Israelis to maintain sovereignty over the west of the Jordan River. Israel cedes control of the security of the eastern border with Jordan. There are Israeli settlements scattered around Palestinian territories. Needless to say, the Palestinian state would be a patchwork controlled and injected with Israeli roads and territories, more akin to the bantustans of the apartheid-era South Africa.

While previous American presidents tacitly approved Israeli aggression, President Trump has shifted that de facto policy towards an official American policy. Before laying out the “Deal of the Century,” Trump has officially recognized Jerusalem as the official capital of Israel and moved the US embassy there.

America is no longer viewed as an arbitrator in this conflict. One of the major negative consequences could be that those who still look up to America to solve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, would become disillusioned. They could be driven into the arms of those who favour guns over talks. The Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) in Egypt abandoned violence and embraced the ballot but when Morsi, an Ikhwan member, won the election, he was ousted in a coup and later murdered. The Ikhwan will never return to peaceful means. The Palestinians are no exception.

Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner is a Trump pointman for the Middle East. He is in-charge of deciding the fate of the Palestinians. His background in the real estate business and the fraudulent bank loans he took, only clarify one point: he genuinely believes that everything can be bought and sold, including the Palestinians. He is not just cool-headed, but also cold-blooded.

The Deal is not just immoral and unjust but also illegal.

A little digging into Jared Kushner’s past is necessary to understand why he cannot be trusted on the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His family has had close ties with Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu frequently visited them when Kushner was a teenager. As a matter of fact, Kushner would sleep in the basement of their house because Netanyahu slept in his room. That is how close they are. Making Kushner in-charge of solving the conflict is only a joke. Besides, Kushner is a practising Jew. It takes no extra intelligence to determine which side he is on.

Treating Palestinian land like Manhattan real-estate where Kushner made some shady deals, he offered the Palestinians cash in return for accepting to forgo their territory, sovereignty, and dignity. He even added a bit of Trump’s spice, if you will, saying that his cash offer to the Palestinians is the “Opportunity of the Century”.

It comes as no surprise that any Palestinian in his right mind would reject such a plan outright. The Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said, “After this nonsense that we heard today we say a thousand nos to the ‘Deal of the Century’. We will not kneel and we will not surrender.”

But what Abbas and the rest of the Palestinians do not perhaps realize is that all this is done to serve the needs of two men primarily. Benjamin Netanyahu has been facing corruption charges in his country and his only get-out-of-jail card is for him to be elected as the Prime Minister. This Deal provides a perfect distraction and, more importantly, it bolsters the chances of Netanyahu winning the election. Remember that this is the third election in less than a year in Israel. In the first two elections, not a single clear winner emerged.

By the time the Deal was announced to the world, which was around the end of January 2020, President Trump was facing an impeachment trial in the United States Senate. While chances of Trump being removed from office were thin because the US Senate is controlled by a Republican majority, Trump needed to prove his foreign policy credentials. A good guess would be that he is going to lean on the Deal with the Taliban and the so-called “Deal of the Century” in the Middle East to get re-elected.

Nevertheless, the Deal is not just immoral and unjust but also illegal. International Humanitarian Law (IHL) comes into play in two situations: armed conflict and military occupation. Israel occupies Palestinian land. Building Israeli settlements on Palestinian land is a violation of the IHL. The law clearly states, “States may not deport or transfer parts of their own civilian population into a territory they occupy.” Before the election last year, Netanyahu promised building more settlements and occupying more of the West Bank in order to attract more right-wing voters. The only critique from the opponents was that he can’t pull it off because he is not strong enough. Not a single word was mentioned that this was immoral and illegal, not to mention, counter-productive.

Trump has made a violation of the IHL in terms of official US policy. Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy said, “Trump is creating not only a new Israel, but a new world. A world without international law, without honouring international resolutions, without even the appearance of justice.” One agrees, especially with the last phrase, “the appearance of justice,” because that is what it was before Trump. Only, that appearance has disappeared. The steal of the century has been executed right in front of our eyes.

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