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apartheid South Africa, Bantustan system, Donald Trump, Peace Deal
Donald Trump’s long-awaited “deal of the century” between Israel and Palestine essentially gives Israel’s far right coalition government everything it wanted. This Middle East “peace” deal allows Israel to annex vast stretches of the Palestinian West Bank (which has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967) into Israel, including all of the illegal Jewish-only settlements in areas colonized by Israeli settlers as well as Arab East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. Palestinians would be granted limited autonomy in a series of largely urban enclaves surrounded by the expanded borders of Israel, with Israel still controlling Palestinian borders, immigration, security, airspace, aquifers and the electromagnetic spectrum.
Indeed, Trump’s proposal for Israel and Palestine bears remarkable resemblance to the notorious Bantustan system of apartheid South Africa.
The United Nations Charter and UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 — which previous U.S. administrations insisted were to be the basis of a peace settlement — explicitly forbid any nation from expanding its territory by military force. But Trump’s proposal allows Israel to do just that.
Trump now insists that Israel’s illegal occupation of these territories is, in fact, legal.
The proposal was praised not only by right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently under indictment on multiple charges of corruption, but also by his supposedly more “moderate” rival, Benny Gantz, who called Trump’s plan “a significant and historic milestone,” and “immediately after the elections, I will work toward implementing it.”
Not all Israelis were supportive, however. Hagai El-Ad, executive director of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, noted how the future for Palestinians under the plan “is not rights or a state, but a permanent state of Apartheid. No amount of marketing can erase this disgrace or blur the facts.”
Similarly, Nimrod Novik, a former aide to Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres who engaged in years of negotiations with the Palestinians, said, “It’s worse than any of us could anticipate.”
Trump’s plan essentially gives the green light to unilateral Israeli annexation of large swathes of occupied territory, which would bring worldwide condemnation, but the Trump administration has promised to veto any initiatives at the United Nations to criticize such a flagrant violation of the UN Charter.
Meanwhile, U.S. Democrats are divided. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-New York) spoke positively of the proposal, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) said that there were “some areas of common ground” in Trump’s plan, adding, “If there’s a possibility for peace we want to give it a chance.”
By contrast, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) condemned the move on Twitter:
Trump’s “peace plan” is a rubber stamp for annexation and offers no chance for a real Palestinian state. Releasing a plan without negotiating with Palestinians isn’t diplomacy, it’s a sham. I will oppose unilateral annexation in any form — and reverse any policy that supports it.
Similarly, fellow presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) noted that,
Any acceptable peace deal must be consistent with international law and multiple UN Security Council resolutions. It must end the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and enable Palestinian self-determination in an independent, democratic, economically viable state of their own alongside a secure Israel. Trump’s so-called “peace deal” doesn’t come close, and will only perpetuate the conflict. It is unacceptable.
Groupe Gaulliste Sceaux 