Right wing rejects reported Trump peace plan that calls for Palestinian state
New Right party says it won’t be part of a government that accepts a plan providing for two-state solution, divided Jerusalem
Right wing politicians protested after a report Wednesday night that a nascent US Israeli-Palestinian peace plan would include a Palestinian state over most of the West Bank, with most of Arab East Jerusalem as its capital.
Responding to the report on Channel 13 news (formerly Channel 10 news), the New Right party said it would not be part of a government that would agree to a two-state solution with Palestinians.
According to the report, the peace proposal being mooted by US President Donald Trump will call for major settlement blocs to be annexed by Israel, and the remaining 85-90% of the West Bank would come under Palestinian sovereignty. The proposal also includes various land swaps in the West Bank.
The capital would be in “most of the Arab neighborhoods” of East Jerusalem while the Old City and its immediate environs would be jointly run with the Palestinians, Jordan and possibly other countries.
A statement from the party said though Trump was a “true friend of Israel,” the country’s “security and Israel’s well-being precede any other interest.”
New Right “will not sit in a government that will divide Jerusalem and establish a Palestinian state,” the party said in a statement, calling for voters to lend it support in order to block such a plan.
The mayor of the settlement of Beit El also slammed Trump’s purported plan, calling it “full of holes.”
While Shai Alon praised Trump for moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, he said there was “no chance whatsoever” Israel would hand over control or oversight of the Western Wall to another entity.
“We did not return to Jerusalem after millennia of exile so a Jordanian guard can check us at the entrance to the Western Wall. This place has belonged to us from time immemorial, and there is no chance whatsoever that we would give it up or hand oversight of it to a third country,” Alon said in a statement.
The White House dismissed the story as unfounded speculation. “As in the past, speculations regarding the peace plan are inaccurate. We have no further reaction,” it said in a statement quoted by Channel 13.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas also panned the proposal, saying any plan that did not follow the 1967 lines would fail.
The Trump administration has refused to commit to a timetable for the rollout of the plan, and has released little information about the contents of the proposal.
US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman recently said it would not be revealed for several months, with it being delayed at least until after elections on April 9.
