Mohammed Al-Minshawi-Washington

Many American experts anticipated President Donald Trump's announcement of his plan for Middle East peace known as the Deal of the Century, and it is expected to be announced today, Tuesday, confirming the absence of any chances for its success.

The experts unanimously agreed that what Trump sees as a peace plan will be counterproductive, as it excludes and complicates the achievement of peace between the parties, especially while ignoring the principle of a two-state solution.

Experts emphasized the failure of Trump's diplomacy to impose peace, which results in a threat to Israeli democracy, damage to the credibility of the United States, and a lack of opportunities to create an independent Palestinian state.

And on the timing of the announcement of the plan, all experts agreed that it is only an attempt to circumvent Trump's internal troubles and crises with his trial and the start of the US election season.

On the other hand, the experts considered that the timing of launching the plan represents an attempt to support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's electoral fortunes, as Israel holds parliamentary elections, for the third time in less than a year, after three weeks.

Some see this as yet another indication that Trump is placing his narrow personal interests ahead of US national security interests.

The announcement of the US peace plan came after the Trump administration took unaccounted steps, including:

Trump decided unilaterally to move the United States embassy to Jerusalem in December 2017, and the Palestinians responded by boycotting the administration and stopping official meetings with the American side.

The Trump administration withheld $ 65 million in August 2018 from funds earmarked for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), and this decision had very negative consequences for Lebanon and Jordan hosting large numbers of Palestinian refugees.

In April 2019, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refused to confirm that the two-state solution is one of the pillars of his country's Middle East policy, and said, "We are working with several parties to present a vision of Middle East peace."

Then came the Bahrain Economic Conference in June 2019, which was aimed at raising funds to support the Palestinians and to improve the conditions surrounding the peace process. While the Palestinians boycotted it, Israel underestimated it, and the conference failed to collect the targeted funds.

In November 2019, the Trump administration announced a change in US policy in describing Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal. The US move bolstered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promise to intend to annex some parts of the West Bank.

The importance of the "Deal of the Century" proposal is weakened by the announcement of the Palestinian side to reject any plan proposed by the American side, even without looking at its details. Likewise, the expected announcement of the peace plan cannot be seen without taking into account that no elected government in Israel would dare to agree to a comprehensive peace plan before the third parliamentary elections in less than a year.

Experts questioned
"There is no justification for announcing the deal of the century now. There is no government in Israel that can be dealt with, and what we know is that the Palestinians will reject the plan as soon as it is announced," said Daniel Shapiro, former US ambassador to Israel under Barack Obama.

Shapiro tweeted, "When I was an ambassador in Israel, the instructions used to say that a third party cannot impose an agreement on the two parties, that the agreement must be the product of direct negotiations between the two parties, and that any agreement must end the long conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and finally we must prevent Israel from becoming a binational state. "

While Martin Indyk, former Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East and envoy for the peace process, said, "Trump's determination to announce the deal of the century before the Israeli elections and without a Palestinian party is proof that it is not a peace plan but rather a meager game from its beginning to its end."

Indyk added, "Offering the plan guarantees its failure, and the Palestinians refuse to kill it and no Israeli government will be able to accept such a thing before the elections."

Former US negotiator Aaron David Miller believes that "putting up the peace deal weeks before the third Israeli elections in less than one year, and without any regard for the Palestinian position, takes American diplomacy to a new level of failure."

"The deal of the century will fail," said Miller, "The Trump administration has underestimated the importance of the Palestinian side in the conflict."

"The peace plan aims to draw attention away from Trump's Senate trial and pave the way for Benjamin Netanyahu's re-election, and it also aims to make the dream of David Friedman, Trump's ambassador to Israel, come true," says Ilan Goldberg, director of the Middle East program at the new US National Security Institute. To annex the West Bank lands to Israel. "