The failed deals of the century

On January 28, 2020, US President Donald Trump formally announced his long-awaited Middle East Peace Plan to resolve the seven-decade-long Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

He hailed it as "the deal of the century".

But is this new plan any different from the many previous deals and declarations that have tried to determine the fate of the Palestinian people?

To find out, we read all 181 pages of Trump's “Vision for Peace” and compared it to the most notable documents on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict starting with the Balfour Declaration of 1917.

The 29,000 word plan contains two parts:

Part A is a political framework which proposes:

• Redrawing the boundaries to incorporate the vast majority of illegal Israeli settlements into Israeli territory and annexing the Jordan Valley (section 4);
• Recognising "Al Quds" which is the Arabic word for Jerusalem as the capital of a future State of Palestine while also, in contradiction, recognising Jerusalem as the "undivided capital" of Israel (section 5);
• Requiring that the State of Palestine remain fully demilitarised (section 7); and
• Denying the internationally-recognised Right of Return by Palestinian refugees (section 16).

Part B contains an economic framework which promises to "facilitate more than $50 billion in new investment over ten years". This includes the construction of a tunnel between the West Bank and Gaza Strip and an artificial island off the coast of Gaza to develop a port and airport.

      
https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2020/the-failed-deals-of-the-century/index.html