In Media Newspeak, a ‘Peace Plan’ for Israel/Palestine Is Anything US Proposes

• In Media Newspeak, a ‘Peace Plan’ for Israel/Palestine Is Anything US Proposes
  by Joshua Cho, https://www.commondreams.org/
  That Jared Kushner or this administration cares about “peace” for the Palestinians has always been a farce.
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  Prior to the elections in Israel/Palestine in September—marred by blatant racism posturing as the “democratic process,” with millions of Palestinians living under varying degrees of Israeli rule unable to vote due to their ethnicity—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu generated headlines for repeatedly pledging to annex nearly a third of the illegally occupied West Bank, in violation of international law, to gain support for his and the Likud party’s reelection (New York Times, 9/10/19).
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  The Trump administration’s refusal to release details before the September election on presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner’s “Vision for Peace” plan, which would supposedly resolve the enduring conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, was only the latest demonstration of the farce the administration’s “peace plan” has always been for Palestinians.
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  However, corporate media coverage of “Vision for Peace” continued to transmit the perspective of US official sources, constantly referring unironically to the proposal as a “peace plan,” “peace initiative” or “peace process.” The more difficult and honest approach to reporting on the so-called “peace plan”—by analyzing the plan on its predictable outcomes, rather than its professed objectives—wasn’t taken, despite the media’s own reporting indicating how the plan could never lead to peace.
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  The Washington Post’s “Kushner Presents Vision of a Middle East at Peace but No Details How to Get There” (6/25/19) tellingly only referred to the Trump administration’s proposal as a “peace plan” in its photo captions, and instead described it as an “economic plan” or a “White House plan” in the text of the article, when it reported on the economic component of Kushner’s plan to raise “$50 billion in regional investment projects over the next decade.” Perhaps this is due to it reporting that the plan has been met with “widespread skepticism” and has already been “rejected by the Palestinian leadership,” who claim that the US can’t be “an honest peace broker after taking several pro-Israel measures,” such as “recognizing the contested city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.”
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  Others have observed how Kushner’s “Peace to Prosperity” plan resembles a real estate developer’s brochure, mentioning “human capital” and “property rights” without mentioning “human rights,” along with buzzwords like “unleashing economic potential” and “enhancing Palestinian governance.” Other pro-Israel measures omitted from the article that make it impossible to accept the US as an honest broker include the Trump administration’s support for Israel’s illegal annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights (FAIR.org, 4/4/19), the closure of the Palestinian diplomatic post in Washington, the transfer of the US embassy to Jerusalem and the slashing of aid to Palestinian refugees (Guardian, 6/25/19).
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