Trump’s New Plan for Mideast Peace Doomed to Failure: Palestinian Analysts

• Trump’s New Plan for Mideast Peace Doomed to Failure: Palestinian Analysts
  by Emad Drimly, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/newchina/index.htm
  GAZA, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) — Palestinian analysts believe that U.S. President Donald Trump’s new plan for the Middle East peace, which is supposed to be revealed in the coming weeks, would not put an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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  They argued that Trump’s plan means to undermine the Palestinian cause rather than reaching a just settlement to the conflict.
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  Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in Jordan that the work on formulating a new plan for achieving peace in the Middle East region is “fairly well advanced.” He said the decision taken on Jerusalem was “about the United States and our recognition of Jerusalem and where we choose to place our embassy.” He added that the decision “does not preclude a two-state solution if that is the solution the parties seek.”
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  Despite global opposition, Trump fulfilled in December one of his major campaign promises by recognizing the disputed city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and ordered to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
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  Israel took over East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and later declared the united city of Jerusalem as its eternal capital, while the Palestinians hope to create a future independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
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  “Washington’s policies in the Middle East have been proven to be a big failure,” Hani al-Masri, director of the Ramallah-based Masarat Center for Studies Research, told Xinhua. The features of the U.S. plan, although not officially put forward, are clear after being presented by U.S. officials to several Arab and international parties.
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  “The American plan includes the establishment of a new ‘city of Jerusalem’ for the Palestinians, a humanitarian solution for the refugees and keeping borders and settlements under Israeli control,” he said. The future of Jewish settlements will be negotiated later after the establishment of a “Palestinian state” in about half of the West Bank and the entire Gaza Strip, al-Masri said.
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  “Any Palestinian role in this plan will definitely mean the end of the Palestinian cause,” al-Masri said, stressing that this plan cannot come to reality without a Palestinian okay.
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  Recently, Palestinian officials announced in many occasions that the U.S. policies in the region threaten security and stability and cannot achieve peace in the Middle East. They consider that the dangerous policies of U.S. administration over Jerusalem, the refugee issue, the 1967 borders and settlements are contrary to the prospects for peace, threatening to destabilize the entire region and ending any hopes of a political settlement.
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