By RON KAMPEAS/JTA
Three years after he asked his adviser son-in-law Jared Kushner to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians, President Donald Trump is ready to launch his “ultimate deal.”
Except don’t call it that. Since Trump made that promise in 2017, the Arab and Israeli media have been waiting for what they call “the deal of the century.” But with time and diminishing expectations, Kushner now prefers to call it a “peace vision.” His father-in-law, with his preference for straight talk, calls it a “plan.”
Whatever it’s called, the deal, plan or vision is sure to reverberate across the Jewish world and beyond — even if it faces long odds. Here are some of the questions we’ll be trying to answer.
1. What’s actually in the plan?
Rumors have been flying since 2017 about the content of the plan. Netanyahu’s bullishness on the deal and his hints that his government may annex the Jordan Valley suggest that the plan will give him leeway to do just that. On the other hand, U.S. officials have told Netanyahu to lay off the annexation talk, a senior Trump administration official told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last week. U.S. Ambassador David Friedman, who has helped shape the plan, suggested last year that annexation was a possibility. But in a more recent speech Friedman spoke of “independence” for the Palestinians.
If the Trump administration comes out in support of either Israeli annexation or Palestinian independence, it would be a big deal. No previous U.S. administration has supported Israeli annexation of the West Bank. And so far, the Trump administration has been cagey on its vision for the Palestinian future.
But does “independence” mean Palestinian statehood? That isn’t clear. It is possible that Trump’s team could propose that the Palestinians retain limited autonomy but remain under Israeli control and without a contiguous territory. Kushner has avoided any mention of a “two-state solution,” a phrase that would imply an independent Palestinian state, saying he does not want to be bound by terminology.
It’s also possible that Tuesday’s event will be long on pomp and short on substance, especially given the timing in the middle of Trump’s impeachment trial, when he would welcome any distraction for the public. The economic portion of the plan, which was released last year by Kushner, mostly was a rehash of proposals to direct financing from Gulf states into Palestinian areas. It has since faded from the discourse.
2. Is there a map? What does it show?
A map amounts to a sign that the Trump administration is serious about implementing the plan — and has done the hard and controversial work of drawing boundaries.
The Jerusalem Post has reported that there will indeed be a detailed map that will include areas — including the Jordan Valley — that will be annexed to Israel. The Jordan Valley, which runs along the West Bank’s eastern border with Jordan, lies beyond Israel’s West Bank security barrier on land that the Palestinians have long claimed.
If the map does give the Jordan Valley to Israel, does it include any other far-flung Israeli settlements? Does it give Palestinians any kind of contiguity that would herald eventual statehood?
Even if Trump’s map never becomes reality, presenting one would add a level of concreteness to his plan that could reshape the discourse around Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations long after he leaves office. President Bill Clinton, in the waning days of his administration, made a two-state outcome official policy — and much to the consternation of the Israeli right wing, that was the official policy through the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.
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