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Two months ago, the long-awaited publication of the Trump administration's ambitious plan for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, which the president called "the ultimate agreement," seemed imminent.
The two senior representatives of President Donald Trump in the peace process – Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and advisor, and Jason Greenblatt, a former Trump Organization lawyer – had prepared and started to broadcast a 40-page project.
But the proposal hit a wall when the Arab Gulf states, who have courted and been courted by Trump, categorically rejected radical, pro-Israel and anti-American terms, according to peace officials. -process of research
Jordan and Egypt, who had equally promising debuts with Trump, also missed out on the terms.
Unable to get the support they expected, Kushner and Greenblatt – both of whom supported right-wing Israeli causes such as the expansion of Jewish settlements on Palestinian-claimed land – took steps to punish the Palestinians. Palestinians.
The Palestinian leadership has refused to talk to the US team since Trump decided in December to formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, upsetting decades of US policy as the holy city is also claimed by the Palestinians.
Since then, the Trump administration has imposed new difficulties on the Palestinians in an effort – so far without success – to bring them back to the negotiating table.
In the most recent example, the State Department announced Friday that the United States would no longer contribute to the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees, calling the agency "irretrievably flawed operation." Palestinians.
Until the Palestinians stop "denigrating" the United States and agree to resume negotiations, they can hope to lose American aid, said Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the United Nations. last week at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. in Washington.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration reduced its contribution to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which provides schools, medical care and other assistance to 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank. from Gaza, Lebanon and Jordan.
The decision announced Friday will eliminate about $ 315 million, about one-third of the US agency's total annual budget. Critics say it will aggravate the humanitarian problems and instability that could threaten Israel.
The Trump Administration complains that the agency far exceeds the eligible refugees. Haley said the United States made a mistake by not only counting the 700,000 Arabs driven out of their homes by Israel's 1948 war of independence, but also millions of their descendants.
She made headlines in the Middle East when she added that the "right of return", the idea that these Palestinians could eventually return to lands that are now part of Israel, needs to be re-examined.
Although the refugee issue is a fundamental cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, most experts agree that the "right of return" has become more abstract than a real possibility. However, successive US administrations have refused to reject it completely. Instead, they pleaded for compensation and land swaps with Israel.
These controversial ideas form the basis of the 40-page document written by Kushner and Greenblatt, US and Israeli officials and diplomats, Israeli and Palestinian who were informed of the peace plan or know it, and requested anonymity. to discuss its contents.
"The willingness of the United States to change the long-established principles of an agreement has been more than music" to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Nimrod Novick, former advisor to the late Israeli Prime Minister and peacemaker Shimon Peres.
"I think it was the driving force behind this: taking Jerusalem off the table, and then taking the refugees away too," said Novick, a member of the New York-based Israeli Political Forum who is campaigning for the coexistence of Israeli and Palestinian states. next to. "Before changing attitude with regard to security and possibly borders".
Kushner, 37, said he was not interested in the history or context of the seemingly intractable, multi-generational, Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But diplomats, experts, and even the Israeli military's warning that to stand so closely with Israel and take any hope of independence from the Palestinians could lead to more violence in the region.
Dave Harden, former deputy administrator of the US Agency for International Development, who led operations in the West Bank and Gaza during the Obama administration, agrees that UNRWA "currently subsidizes dysfunction" and needs to be reformed . But he said the Trump administration's approach was likely to turn around.
"You can not go from 100% to zero (funding) overnight," Harden said. "It will create a void. And who will intervene to fill it? The Palestinian Authority? Israel? Nobody will pay. And that creates a great openness for Hamas, "said the militant Islamist organization that controls Gaza and is considered a terrorist group by Israel and the United States.
David D. Pearce, who served as US Consul General in Jerusalem in the administration of George W. Bush, echoed this warning.
"It will not create a diplomatic effect to withdraw funds from schools and health services," he said on Twitter. "It will create hatred."
Palestinian leaders have criticized Haley's remarks and cuts in UNRWA funds as an affront to international law that has shown "hostility" to Palestinians and their rights.
Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, said Trump's representatives proposed that the Palestinians form a "confederation" with Jordan, which is already home to millions of Palestinian refugees.
Abbas and his supporters viewed the US proposal as a thinly veiled attempt to subvert the goal of the Palestinian state.
Kushner and Greenblatt, unable to get involved in their wider plan, also sought to draw attention to Gaza, a sea enclave bordered by Israel and Egypt, by offering investments and aid mainly from Arab countries. .
This seems to contradict the US objective of having the Palestinian Authority move Hamas to Gaza.
David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel and former Trump bankruptcy lawyer, is another force behind these controversial movements. He also supports Israeli causes on the right.
In addition to successfully conducting the transfer of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Friedman persuaded the administration to remove the universally used terminology of the "occupied territories" by referring to the West Bank and Gaza .
The administration "sees this as an opportunity to realign US policy in an unprecedented way for 25 years," said veteran negotiator Middle East Aaron David Miller, "and make it more difficult to restore successive administrations ".
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