Trump’s “Deal of the Century”: A Racist Attempt at Bribery that is Destined to Fail

• Trump’s “Deal of the Century”: A Racist Attempt at Bribery that is Destined to Fail
  by Lawrence Davidson, https://www.redressonline.com/
  The Deal of the Century
  President Trump’s peace plan for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, or at least the economic side of it, was discussed at a meeting in Bahrain on 25 and 26 June. The plan, euphemistically entitled “Peace to Prosperity” and the “Deal of the Century” is also, inaccurately, likened to a “Marshall Plan for Palestinians”. It is based on the assumption that money, ultimately the better part of $50 billion, can lure the Palestinian people into surrender – that is, the surrender of their right to a state of their own on their stolen ancestral land as well as the right of return for the 7.5 million Palestinians who have been forced into exile. Upon surrender, according to the plan, “an ambitious, achievable… framework for a prosperous future for the Palestinian people and the region” will be put into place. How this idealised future is to be integrated into the apartheid and Bantustan system of control that constitutes the Israeli government’s “facts on the ground” is left unexplained.
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  This bit of gilded bait was put together by “senior White House adviser” Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law; Jason Greenblatt, chief lawyer of the Trump organisation and now US envoy for international negotiations; and David Friedman, the president’s bankruptcy lawyer who is now the US ambassador to Israel. All of these men are at once unqualified for their present positions as well as Zionist supporters of Israeli expansionism. It is not surprising then that the Israeli government has welcomed this effort. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that he “would listen to the American plan and hear it fairly and with openness”. On the other hand, the Palestinian West Bank leader, Mahmoud Abbas, who is boycotting the Bahrain meeting, said, “As long as there is no political [solution], we do not deal with any economic [solution].”
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  There are no doubt some Palestinians who are upset at Abbas’s position: perhaps some business people, often-unpaid bureaucrats, and a portion of the frustrated middle class, who will be dearly tempted by the promise of all that money. These are people who, given over a century of struggle, see no hope of a just political settlement. Nonetheless, those tempted might consider these facts: 
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