WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump on Tuesday presented his long-promised plan to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, giving Israel virtually everything it wanted, including control over an undivided Jerusalem, no right of return for Palestinian refugees, full sovereignty over the Jordan River valley and no evacuations of any Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Palestinians, under the plan, would receive up to $50 billion in financial investments and the promise eventually receiving sovereignty in a demilitarized state, surrounded by Israeli territory and broken up into non-contiguous parcels in the West Bank and Gaza.
Speaking to a heavily pro-Israeli audience at the White House, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump vowed unrelenting support for Israel while urging Palestinians to accept what "may be the last opportunity" to build an independent state.
Palestinian representatives said they were not invited to Tuesday's White House ceremony and were not consulted in the plan. They have declared it dead on arrival, noting it consists largely of ideas they have rejected repeatedly in the past.
Describing what he said was an 80-page document drafted over nearly three years, Trump said the plan gave Palestinians four years to meet a list of demands that would then qualify them to negotiate a state. Some of the demands, such as reining in the Hamas group that controls the Gaza Strip and ending payments to the families of militants slain by Israelis, have either been rejected by the Palestinian Authority in its past or are beyond its capability.
During that four-year period, Trump said, the expansion of Israeli settlements, which has turned the West Bank into something akin to Swiss cheese and far from a contiguous state, would be suspended in those areas that the plan envisions would one day become part of a Palestinian state. But no settlements would be evacuated, and presumably settlements in areas not envisioned by the plan to become part of Palestine could continue to expand.
Trump said the U.S. would recognize a Palestinian capital in "Eastern Jerusalem," something the Palestinians have long desired. But he also said Israel would be guaranteed permanent control over its "undivided capital" in Jerusalem. The two seem irreconcilable.
Hours before Trump was unveiled his plan, Netanyahu suffered a major political setback when prosecutors in his own country proceeded with a three-count indictment against him for alleged bribery, fraud and the coercing of favorable coverage from Israeli media outlets.
Netanyahu said early Tuesday he was forced to withdraw his petition to the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, seeking immunity from prosecution. Analysts said he was almost certain to lose the appeal. That cleared the way for the Israeli attorney general's office to proceed with an indictment against the country's longest serving prime minister.
Netanyahu, like Trump, had hoped the announcement of a long-stalled U.S. plan to ease the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would give political boosts to both embattled leaders. The two close allies are mired in legal troubles: Netanyahu's looming corruption trial and Trump's impeachment trial for abuse of power.
Netanyahu has dismissed the case against him as politically motivated.
"This is in line with the persecution campaign that the 'Anything but Bibi' camp has waged," Netanyahu wrote on his Facebook page, using his common nickname. "In due time, we will demolish the disproportionate charges contained in the empty accusations filed in my case."
Also like Trump, Netanyahu has referred to the legal charges against him as an attempted "coup," and scolded his nation's judicial authorities for putting "cheap politicking" above "the gravity of the hour" and a "decisive moment" in Israeli history.
But despite efforts by both Trump and Netanyahu to portray Tuesday's announcement as "historic," most experts see the plan as a political stunt that will merely repackage old, failed ideas to resolve the conflict. And they predict it will swiftly fail due to the lack of any Palestinian participation or support.
At the same time, Trump sought to downplay expectations of what he once called "the ultimate deal," saying Monday the plan was "a suggestion" that he hoped Palestinians would eventually come to accept.
The Trump administration, in nearly three years of talks led by Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner, did not consult with Palestinians in drafting the document.
Palestinian leadership boycotted any dealings with the Trump administration after a series of pro-Israeli steps, including recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel _ Palestinians also claim the city as their capital in an eventual independent state _ and of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a fertile plateau captured from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Trump also cut off much U.S. aid to Palestinians in a bid to force their leaders to the negotiating table, and abandoned the U.S. commitment to a "two-state solution," the idea that foresaw an independent Palestinian nation living peacefully alongside Israel.
Trump surprised Israelis last week when he abruptly invited Netanyahu and his chief political rival, Benny Gantz, to the White House this week to share the peace plan.
Netanyahu and Gantz, a former army commander who heads a centrist political party, faced each other in elections twice last year, both resulting in a virtual tie and rendering both unable to form a government. A third election attempt is scheduled for early March, an unprecedented era of political chaos in a country where politics are rarely smooth.
"In order to move forward with the 'deal of the century,' it is our responsibility to march united under a prime minister who has the public legitimacy to enact it," Gantz said after his meeting on Monday with Trump and before returning to Israel on Tuesday. "There is reason to fear that a prime minister with three indictments against him will make decisions based on the personal interest of his own political survival."
