Trump's Israel-Palestine peace accord underway

WASHINGTON: After the much-resisted Jerusalem announcement, the Trump administration is in the process of finalising its own version of a Middle East peace agreement to help resolve the decades old Israel-Palestine conflict.

Even though details of such agreement have not been made public yet, region's experts believe that secret negotiations with certain parties are already underway. To examine the shape of its version, the vice president will travel to Israel, Jordan and Egypt later this week.

While the American side is tightlipped about the prospective agreement; one of the high profile negotiators, politicians and Israel's former ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren has confirmed to this correspondent that the Trump administration is "indeed preparing a comprehensive peace plan." Oren is currently the deputy minister in Israel's cabinet. Replying to a question, he said that other aspects of the expected peace plan "will provide for normalisation between Israel and Arab states and for an end to claims and an end to conflict, Palestinian aspiration for self-determination will, of course, also be addressed."

Last December, US President Donald Trump formally recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital and ordered the State Department to begin moving the country's embassy from Tel Aviv. In his address from the White House, he called it a great deal for all the parties concerned. "This decision is not intended in any way to reflect a departure from our strong commitment to facilitate a lasting peace agreement," he said adding, "We want an agreement that is a great deal for the Israelis and a great deal for the Palestinians."

As the president had indicated that there would be disagreements and dissent regarding his announcement, there were. The United Nations Security Council and General Assembly opposed his declaration.

Another critical negotiator in the past from the Israeli side, Yossi Beilin now believes that the Trump declaration was just a part of public diplomacy. Beilin's far-reaching proposed peace agreement, after lengthy negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, that came to be known as Beilin-Abu Mazen document remained an unofficial draft because of the assassination of the then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. After that, both sides refuted the existence of any such deal.

When asked Dr Beilin what the future holds and how different any peace effort could be from the Oslo Accords and the Geneva Initiative, he replied: "I think that the optimal plan, right now, should be based on the 'Arab Initiative' from 2002 and on the 'Road Map' from 2003; namely: a Palestinian State in provisional borders for a limited period, and an intensive Arab involvement in the process, which will culminate in full normalisation with Israel."

The Arab Initiative was spearheaded by the Saudis. It called for normalising relations between the Arab region and Israel, in exchange for a full withdrawal by Israel from the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, and a "just settlement" of the Palestinian refugees problem based on UN Resolution 194. The Palestinian Authority had embraced the plan.

The Road Map was proposed by the Quartet on the Middle East: the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. The plan described as a "performance based and goal driven roadmap" dissolves in three phases. It asks for an independent Palestinian state living side by side with Israel in peace.

"It is very clear that the United States will propose a peace plan. It has been working on this for sometimes and of course, Mr Kushner has been the lead individual in this," said Marvin Weinbaum of the Middle East Institute. He said what was upsetting to a lot of people was the fact that "the very basis on which discussions might take place have been forfeited by the decision on Jerusalem." Weinbaum added "Holding out East Jerusalem or at least a portion of East Jerusalem as a future capital of Palestinian State, I think, most people recognise essential to the idea of having a two state solution."