Even though no formal proposal has been released on the US President Donald Trump Middle East peace plan for 2019, Israeli and Palestinian officials have issued statements rejecting a leaked draft over the course of the last two days.
Israel’s science minister Ofir Akunis, from the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, responded by calling for Israeli sovereignty to be imposed over the West Bank immediately after Israel’s April election.
“We must accelerate the pace of construction in Samaria and Judea, first and foremost to ensure our natural right to our land and to prevent the catastrophe of the establishment of a Palestinian terror state,” he said, using the biblical name for the West Bank.
Israeli Sports Minister Miri Regev, a family friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel refuses the establishment of a Palestinian state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Palestinian officials were also vocal with their objection to the plan strongly as well. The Assistant Foreign Minister for European Affairs, Amal Jadou, during her meeting with the new Spanish ambassador heading the Special Mission for Middle East and Mediterranean Affairs, Alfonso Lucini, said that any peace plan which does guarantee the establishment of an independent state according to the 1967 borders “will be doomed to failure.”
Bassam as-Salhi, the General Secretary of the Palestinian People's Party, said that the leaked plan undermines the interest of Palestinians, reasserting the need for Palestinians uniting in the face of such a deal.
Israeli sources leaked a report saying that the Trump administration was planning to offer the Palestinians a fully-sovereign state on 85-90 percent of the West Bank, with the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem as its capital city. Nevertheless, American Middle East negotiation coordinator Jason Greenblatt said that the leak information was inaccurate.
