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US President Trump and son-in-law Kushne
Photo: AP

Report: Trump's Mideast plan proposes Palestinian state in West Bank

The 'deal of the century', according to Reshet 13 TV, will include territorial swaps in most West Bank territories and a capital in East Jerusalem.

Israeli television said on Wednesday that US President Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan would propose a Palestinian state on as much as 90 percent of West Bank, with a capital in East Jerusalem, but not including its holy sites.

 

 

The Trump administration has said publication of the plan, kept closely under wraps, could be months away, and cautioned against speculation about its contents.

 

US Mideast team meets with Prime Minister Netanyahu, August 2018  (Photo: US Embassy Jerusalem)
US Mideast team meets with Prime Minister Netanyahu, August 2018
 

Citing what it said was a source briefed by the Americans, Reshet 13 TV said the plan would entail Israel annexing Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank while isolated settlements would either be evacuated or their construction halted.


Trump wants the proposed Israeli moves to be supplemented by territorial swaps with the Palestinians, and for East Jerusalem's walled Old City to be under Israeli sovereignty but with the joint management of the Palestinians and Jordan, the report said.

 

It said that "most Arab neighborhoods" in East Jerusalem would be under Palestinian sovereignty as a future capital.

 

Jerusalem (Photo: Reuters)
Jerusalem
 

 

Israel calls all of Jerusalem its "eternal and undivided capital", a status not recognized internationally. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem, including the Al Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City, as capital of a future state.

 

The report made no mention of the fate of Palestinian refugees, another core dispute in the decades-old conflict, or of how the Gaza Strip, which is under the control of Hamas Islamists opposed to peace with Israel, might fit into the plan.

 

President Trump visits the Western Wall in Jerusalem, May 2017  (Photo: Reuters)
President Trump visits the Western Wall in Jerusalem, May 2017
  

 

Israeli and Palestinian officials did not immediately respond to the Reshet 13 report. A senior White House official said only: "As in the past, speculation with regards to the content of the plan is not accurate."

 

In separate remarks to reporters, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, predicted that the Trump plan would not be released before an Israeli election on April 9.

 

"From what we understand, it will not be presented before the election," Danon said. "It's a smart decision because we don't want it to become the issue of the elections."

 


פרסום ראשון: 01.16.19, 22:42
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