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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Rowena Mason Deputy political editor

Boris Johnson praises Trump's Middle East peace plan at PMQs

Boris Johnson at PMQs
Boris Johnson at PMQs, when Jeremy Corbyn urged him to support a ‘genuine, internationally-backed peace plan rather than this stuff proposed by Trump.’ Photograph: UK parliamentary recording unit/EPA

Boris Johnson has lavished praise on Donald Trump’s vision for Middle East peace, after Jeremy Corbyn criticised the plan for failing to gain the support of any Palestinians.

The prime minister said Trump’s plan “has the merits of a two state solution”, even though it has been criticised for offering Israel a wishlist of its long-held demands while promising Palestinians a potential “state” with severe restrictions.

At prime minister’s questions in the Commons on Wednesday, the outgoing Labour leader called on Johnson to stand up to the US and tell Trump “frankly and candidly that on this you are wrong”.

He said: “It will annex Palestinian territory, lock in illegal Israeli colonisation, transfer Palestinian citizens of Israel and deny Palestinian people their fundamental rights.

Donald Trump has unveiled his much-touted Middle East peace plan, tweeting a map showing his vision for an even further depleted Palestinian state than that envisioned by the Oslo peace agreement in 1993.

The key points of the proposed plan are:

  • Establish Jerusalem as Israel’s “undivided” capital, with a potential Palestinian capital to the east and north of the city.
  • Recognise the vast majority of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory as part of the country. A Palestinian state would receive territory, mostly desert, near Gaza to compensate for the loss of about 30% of the West Bank. Gaza and the West Bank would be linked by high speed rail.
  • Recognise the Jordan valley, which makes up about a third of the occupied West Bank, as part of Israel.
  • Offer a path to some form of Palestinian statehood but with no army, and overarching Israeli security control in some areas, including over the sea. The plan also sets a series of conditions the Palestinians have to meet before receiving independence including the “complete dismantling of Hamas”, which governs Gaza.
  • The possibility of stripping Israeli citizenship from tens of thousands of Arab Israelis who live in 10 border towns, with those towns and their residents being included into any future state of Palestine.
  • Recognise sections of the desert bordering Egypt as part of any future Palestinian state.
  • Refuse Palestinian refugees the “right of return” to homes lost to Israel in previous conflicts.

“When the government meets with the US secretary of state later today, will he make it clear that the British government will stand for a genuine, internationally backed peace plan rather than this stuff proposed by Trump yesterday?”

Johnson rejected Corbyn’s assessment, telling him: “No peace plan is perfect, but this has the merit of a two-state solution. It would ensure Jerusalem is both the capital of Israel and the Palestinian people.

“I would urge him rather than being so characteristically negative to reach out to his friend, my friend, our friends in the Palestinian authority, to Mahmoud Abbas – for whom I have the highest respect – and urge him for once to engage, to get talking rather than to leave a political vacuum.”

Corbyn hit back that Trump’s plan “will not bring any move towards peace, has no support from any Palestinian anywhere in the world”.

Trump unveiled his vision for Middle East peace in a White House launch on Tuesday, standing next to a smiling Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The US president announced details of the 181-page plan to cheers and applause but Palestinian leaders were absent from the launch, having rejected his proposal.

The plan, released by the White House, said the proposal intended to:

  • Establish Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital, with a potential Palestinian capital to the east and north of the city.

  • Recognise the vast majority of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory as part of the country. A Palestinian state would receive territory, mostly desert, near Gaza to compensate for the loss of about 30% of the West Bank. Gaza and the West Bank would be linked by high-speed rail.

  • Recognise the Jordan valley, which makes up about a third of the occupied West Bank, as part of Israel.

  • Offer a path to some form of Palestinian statehood but with no army, and overarching Israeli security control in some areas, including over the sea. The plan also sets a series of conditions the Palestinians have to meet before receiving independence including the “complete dismantling of Hamas”, which governs Gaza.

Abbas, the Palestinian president, criticised the deal as a conspiracy that “will not pass”, while in Gaza, the Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhr described the document as worthless.

“Palestine will prevail, and Trump and the deal will go to the dustbin of history,” he said.

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