As The Guardian reports, *45’s much ballyhooed Piece Plan announced in the presence of one side only, wants to [my comments in brackets; compare the map below to the above map documenting the current situation]
Official Piece Plan map. If you can’t read the caption, it says the circles are settlements to be included in Israel, and the list is not inclusive. In fact, one of the legend comments says not a single settlement is to be evacuated.
The little green circles are tunnels to connect bits and pieces of Palestinian territory.
The dashed line between Gaza and W.Bank is a *tunnel*! 40 km under mostly flat terrain (h/t Portlaw).
Establish Jerusalem as Israel’s “undivided” capital, with a potential Palestinian capital in districts to the east and north of the city.
Recognise the vast majority of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory as part of the country. [in the top map these are the small-medium crimson patches scattered all over the place]
Recognise the Jordan Valley, which makes up about a third of the occupied West Bank, as part of Israel [that’s the band of “Israel” stuck between the green “Palestine” and Jordan].
Offer a path to some form of Palestinian statehood but with no army, and overarching Israeli security control in some areas, including over the sea [that pertains to Gaza since West Bank is landlocked; in fact, no port allowed for Gaza at all in the Piece Plan map].
Recognise sections of the desert bordering Egypt as part of any future Palestinian state [these are the disconnected blobs south of the Gaza Strip, deep in the desert; because why create any contiguity when you can rule them better in teeny Bantustans?].
To sum up and clarify for the uninitiated: this plan essentially sanctions the current reality, plus some hugely expensive pig-lipsticking. Israel already controls the entire territory, with fully encircled Palestinian Bantustans thrown in (read the caption to the top image). That situation was universally understood as “temporary”, even though the world has dragged its feet on resolving it or even preventing it from exacerbating. In comes *45 and wants to sanction it as permanent.
Extremely obviously, the timing was chosen to help *45 distract from the impeachment, and help Bibi distract from his corruption indictment which was served precisely today, as well as give him tail wind in the March 2 elections.
As Laura Clawson explains, the first ploy is a complete flop, possibly even worse. Not only are US news completely dominated by Bolton leaks and the increasing possibility he’ll testify, but *45 visibly heaping praise and gifting a foreign leader the day he’s given a long-expected 3-count corruption indictment, no strings attached — completely pulls the rug from under the impeachment line of defense.
The second one (Bibi distraction)… also, not too much.
It is the third part — giving Bibi personally, and the Israeli-supremacist agenda in general, a huge political ammunition — where it succeeds.
Bibi has already been floating annexation of settlements, and then of the Jordan Valley, as trial balloons in September’s dud election. Bibi’s main opposition leader Gantz was already scared into supporting the latter, and in fact flew to DC and gave his blessing yesterday. This shows
That the repeat 2019-2020 elections (it’ll be the 3rd in 11 months) which seem so ferociously fought, are in fact between Bibi’s increasingly far-right, and an opposition which is very much centre-right now. Not even center. Surely not centre-left (very sad laugh). Unilateral annexation of Jordan valley, retention of control over all Palestinian entry and exit as a sanctioned permanent reality, are DOA not just with Palestinians but with the international community.
How far to the right the Israeli consensus has drifted, moving the Overton Window not just there but also over here. For the record, Israel’s Labor party leader Amir Peretz wrote to *45 asking not to announce the plan, and saying things like that must be negotiated. But Labor is now a minor party, no one’s even counting them.
As the Guardian reports, there is no intention to really make any sort of negotiations on the basis of this travesty. Rather, this is an Annex At Will card handed over to Bibi. Political theater of the most dangerous kind.
And Bibi’s wasting no time— he’s planning a cabinet vote this coming Sunday to unilaterally annex all the parts “approved” by *45.
This throws out the window any attempt to spin the affair (as some commenters naively suggested below), as “the starting point for negotiations” (which would be laughable even if it was). No. This is green light for immediate, full legitimization of an Apartheid regime.