‘You can’t make this up!’: Senate erupts in laughter when Adam Schiff reveals DOJ lawyers just completely contradicted Trump’s impeachment defense

January 30, 2020 By Cody Fenwick, AlterNet - Commentary


To defend against Democratic allegations of an illicit cover-up, President Donald Trump’s lawyers have argued fervently that the second article of impeachment in the Senate trial charging him with obstructing Congress is completely unwarranted. Instead of charging Trump with obstructing Congress, they’ve argued, Democrats should have taken the president to court to enforce subpoenas of his aides and requests for documents.

But on Thursday, a Justice Department attorney — who, ostensibly, works for the president — completely contradicted this argument.

There’s long been a tension in the president’s impeachment defense and his administration’s position in court, as many have pointed out. Trump’s impeachment attorneys have argued that Congress shouldn’t have charged Trump with obstructing their investigation but instead worked out disputes in the judicial branch. But when Congress has taken the administration to court to enforce its subpoenas, Justice Department attorneys have argued that judges can’t resolve the dispute between the legislative branch and the executive.

Basically, combining these two arguments, Trump’s lawyers are saying Congress should go to court to enforce its subpoenas, and then it should lose in court — essentially implying that lawmakers should have no power at all to compel evidence from the executive branch. If this were true, the power of impeachment would essentially be nullified.

Previously, some Trump administration lawyers have been reluctant to say in court whether Congress could or should use the impeachment to enforce its subpoenas, instead urging that lawmakers could withhold funds from the administration to exert pressure for compliance. But on Thursday, in an ongoing fight over the 2020 Census, Justice Department lawyer James Burnham said that the House can legitimately use its impeachment powers to respond to a president who defies subpoenas, as CNN reported.

Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow has argued, however, that the proper place to resolve the dispute over subpoenas is courts and not impeachment, according to Politico.

“The president’s opponents, in their rush to impeach, have refused to wait for judicial review,” Sekulow argued to the Senate.

And legal scholar John Turley, who testified on behalf of Republicans in the House impeachment proceedings, warned against “making a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the courts.”

House impeachment manager Adam Schiff (D-CA) pointed out the glaring inconsistency and hypocrisy on Thursday in his remarks to the Senate, drawing laughter from the audience.

“Today, while we’ve been debating whether a president can be impeached for essentially bogus claims of privilege, for attempting to use the courts to cover up misconduct, the Justice Department in resisting subpoenas is in court today … because, as we know, they’re in here arguing Congress must go to court to enforce its subpoenas, but they’re in the court saying ‘Congress, thou shalt not do that,’” he explained. “So the judge says: ‘If the Congress can’t enforce its subpoenas in court, then what remedy is there?’ And the Justice Department lawyer’s response is ‘Impeachment! Impeachment!’”

At that, the Senate chamber burst into laughter.

“You can’t make it up!” Schiff said. “What more evidence do we need of the bad faith of this effort to cover up?”

SCHIFF: "While we've been debating whether POTUS can be impeached for bogus claims of privilege, the DOJ is resisting subpoenas in court today… the judge says 'if Congress can't enforce its subpoenas, what remedy is there,' & DOJ's response is impeachment! You can't make it up" pic.twitter.com/Tim1HHDgBO

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 30, 2020

Trump’s lawyers have tried to suggest that the House manager’s position is itself similarly contradictory because they’ve tried to enforce their subpoenas through both the courts and through impeachment. But there’s nothing incongruous about believing that House subpoenas can be enforced through two different avenues.

What’s so duplicitous about the Trump lawyers’ position is that it means that House subpoenas would be entirely unenforceable, not even worth the paper they’re printed on — but they refuse to admit this outright.

Senate stunned as Schiff reveals DOJ just argued in court that defying subpoenas is an impeachable offense

January 30, 2020 By Sarah K. Burris


President Donald Trump’s Justice Department appeared in court Thursday as part of the Houses’ ongoing attempt to enforce subpoenas for information they’ve sought in other cases.

Schiff quoted the DOJ legal team’s argument in court that judges “have no place to enforce subpoenas because of the impeachment power.”

It’s a point that Schiff has pointed is in constant contradiction with the case the White House has made in the impeachment proceedings. The White House lawyers have said that the House impeachment investigation needed to play out in court. They claimed that subpoenas for witnesses and documents must take place in the courtroom because the judicial branch is an essential check on the legislative branch.

Yet, in court, they claimed that the judicial branch has no place.

“Schiff stunned the room just now when he informed senators that JUST TODAY, as Trump’s lawyers argue in the Senate the House should’ve gone to court to enforce subpoenas, DOJ lawyers argued in COURT that judges have no place to enforce subpoenas because of the impeachment power,” Crooked Media Brian Beutler.

Schiff stunned the room just now when he informed senators that JUST TODAY, as Trump’s lawyers argue in the Senate the House should’ve gone to court to enforce subpoenas, DOJ lawyers argued in COURT that judges have no place to enforce subpoenas because of the impeachment power
— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) January 30, 2020


SCHIFF: "While we've been debating whether POTUS can be impeached for bogus claims of privilege, the DOJ is resisting subpoenas in court today… the judge says 'if Congress can't enforce its subpoenas, what remedy is there,' & DOJ's response is impeachment! You can't make it up" pic.twitter.com/Tim1HHDgBO
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 30, 2020

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The FBI is reportedly probing a notorious Israeli spyware company that was linked to the Jeff Bezos phone hack

NSO has also been accused of supplying software used to surveil Jamal Khashoggi before his murder by Saudi Arabia in October 2018.

Rosie Perper

Samantha Lee/Business Insider


The FBI Israel's NSO Group over the use of its software for hacks of US citizens and companies, according to Reuters.

The Israeli spyware company has been linked to several high-profile hacks, most recently to an attack on the phone of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

NSO has also been accused of supplying software used to surveil Jamal Khashoggi before his murder by Saudi Arabia in October 2018.

The FBI is probing the use of spyware from the Israeli company NSO Group, which has been linked to hacks on Saudi dissidents and US companies, according to the Reuters news agency.

The investigation began in 2017, when FBI officials wanted to work out whether NSO possessed code which could infect people's phones, according to a source who was interviewed by the FBI.

News of an FBI investigation into the company follows reports that the iPhone of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was hacked by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The Guardian first reported earlier this month that bin Salman helped steal data from Bezos' phone after sending an unsolicited video that contained a malicious file in 2018.

The hack is believed to have happened after the two men spoke on WhatsApp on May 1, 2018, weeks after meeting at a dinner in Los Angeles.

Saudi Arabia has denied that bin Salman was involved, and called the allegations "absurd."

Last week, a United Nations report said that bin Salman likely was involved in hacking Bezos' phone. It said that a forensic analysis of the phone said it was "likely" to have been carried out with the sort of software NSO has.

NSO Group did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for more information.

The spyware firm has been linked to several high-profile hacks in recent years.

Researchers at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk School identified 36 operators that used NSO Group's technology on targets in 45 countries.
In May 2019, WhatsApp was hacked, and, according to The Financial Times, the hackers installed sophisticated NSO spyware on an unknown number of phones.

In June 2018, Omar Abdulaziz, a Saudi activist in exile in Canada, had his phone targeted with NSO spyware by Saudi agents.

Abdulaziz said in a lawsuit filed in December 2018 that the same spyware was used to target Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered by Saudi agents in October 2018.

And on Tuesday, New York Times Beirut bureau chief Ben Hubbard reported that his phone had been targeted by Saudi agents. He said technology researchers determined the attack was also likely carried out with NSO technology.

---30---

SET PHASERS TO STUN

CHILE 2020 LASER PENS AGAINST THE POLICE

A TACTIC ALSO USED BY HONG KONG PROTESTERS

MELANIA AT IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS

GOATS IN TREES MORROCO

Jimmy Carter declares that Trump’s plan for Israelis and Palestinians violates international law

 January 30, 2020  By Agence France-Presse

Jimmy Carter said Thursday that President Donald Trump’s Middle East plan would violate international law and urged the United Nations to stop Israel from annexing Palestinian land.

“The new US plan undercuts prospects for a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians,” the former US president said in a statement.

“If implemented, the plan will doom the only viable solution to this long-running conflict, the two-state solution,” said Carter, who brokered the landmark 1978 Camp David Accords that brought peace between Israel and Egypt.

He urged UN member-states “to adhere to UN Security Council resolutions and to reject any unilateral Israeli implementation of the proposal by grabbing more Palestinian land.”

His office said in a statement that Trump’s plan, unveiled Tuesday, “breaches international law regarding self-determination, the acquisition of land by force, and annexation of occupied territories.”

“By calling Israel ‘the nation-state of the Jewish people,’ the plan also encourages the denial of equal rights to the Palestinian citizens of Israel,” it said.

Trump presented his long-awaited plan Tuesday alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his close ally, who shortly afterward signalled he would seek to annex a large part of the West Bank.

Trump’s plan recognizes Israeli sovereignty over most of its West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley, as well as an undivided Jerusalem.

The plan also backs a Palestinian state with a capital on the outskirts of Jerusalem but says the Palestinian leadership must recognize Israel as a Jewish homeland and agree to a demilitarized state.

The 95-year-old Carter, the longest-living president in US history, has frequently spoken out since losing re-election in 1980 and has won the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work.

In his recent years, he has frequently faced criticism from pro-Israel supporters for his views on the conflict, especially his use of the word “apartheid” to describe the Jewish state’s potential future without a peace deal.


© 2020 AFP

God put Trump in White House, says US ambassador to Israel

David Friedman calls Israeli control of occupied Palestinian territory an ‘opportunity for Biblical tourism’

Alex Woodward New York

Friday 31 January 2020 

The US ambassador to Israel believes Donald Trump was sent by God to occupy the White House, following the president’s proposal to cement Israeli rule over Jerusalem and end a decades-long conflict with Palestinians.

Asked by the Christian Broadcast Network whether the president was “heaven-sent for you guys”, David Friedman said he believed that “God runs the world, and that would apply to the president”.

He added: “The president supports Israel because I think it fits with his essential understanding of who’s right and who’s wrong, who’s surviving against the odds, who’s creating democracy in a sea of challenges around it.”

Mr Brody asked whether Mr Friedman, who is Jewish, believed that “God puts people in certain places in certain times, for such a time as this”.

He replied: “I think God puts persons in places for certain times, at all times.”

Palestinian protests against President Trump's Middle East peace plan

“And Trump is exhibit A of this?” Mr Brody asked.

Mr Friedman said: “He sure is.”

The diplomat said Mr Trump had ”surrounded himself” with supporters of Tel Aviv’s agenda, describing the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, one of the architects of the Israeli plan, as well as Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo, as “Israel’s best friends.” Mr Kushner is Jewish while Mr Pence and Mr Pompeo are both hard-line evangelical Christians.


“But above them all,” Mr Friedman said, “the president has really been Israel’s best friend.”
The 181-page plan effectively caters to demands Israel has made under Benjamin Netanyahu, and has been roundly rejected by Palestinian leaders. The plan would carve out a fractured Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank and would allow Israel to annex the Jordan Valley and all occupied territory, including areas containing settlements that are illegal under international law.

In line with White House policy introduced in 2017, Jerusalem would be recognized as Israel’s capital and would be under Israeli control, with a Palestinian capital created in the eastern outskirts of the holy city

The plan also would deny Palestinian refugees the right to return to lands they had fled or were forced from decades ago that are now inside Israel.

Asked how the US Christian evangelical community influenced the plan’s drafting, Mr Friedman said he had an “enormous amount in common” with the community, which his boss has courted assiduously. “They’re believers. They believe in the divinity of the land of Israel.”

Since his 2016 campaign, Mr Trump has cultivated the support of right-wing American evangelical groups and pastors, boasting of his administration’s anti-abortion stance and conservative judicial appointments. The president also launched an “Evangelicals for Trump” campaign this year as he seeks re-election.

Mr Friedman said Israeli control over Palestinian land would open a massive tourism industry for Christian evangelicals.

Benjamin Netanyahu says Donald Trump has been ‘the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House’

The ambassador claimed that Jewish and Christian holy sites that are currently within Palestinian territory - including Shiloh, Hebron and Al-Bireh – were “completely neglected” and that the US would help assert Israeli control over them. Those areas also contain Muslim holy sites.

Israel “has not obtained sovereignty over those territories”, he said. ”Our plan contemplates that Israel will.”

“You’re talking about opening up the Bible and bringing it back to life,” said Mr Friedman, who called the Trump plan ”an opportunity for biblical tourism that will grow and flourish in profound ways”.

Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ is so absurd and banal, it’s impossible to take it seriously

Trump says Jerusalem will be Israel's 'undivided capital' under Middle East peace plan

Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ is so absurd and banal, it’s impossible to take it seriously

Truly, all must read these 80 pages. And every reader should go through them twice – in case, first time round, they missed some extra egregious indignity inflicted upon the Palestinians

Robert Fisk@indyvoices

With the two old political fraudsters emerged at the White House this week with the most deranged, farcical tragi-comedy in Middle East history, it was difficult to know whether to laugh or cry.

The 80-page “peace” plan from the White House contained 56 references to “Vision” in its first 60 pages – and yes, with a capital V on each occasion to suggest, I guess, that this “deal of the century” was a supernatural revelation. It was not, though it might have been written by a super-Israeli.

It said goodbye to Palestinian refugees – the famous/infamous “right of return” and all who now rot in the camps of the Middle East; farewell to the old city of Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital; adieu to UNRWA, the UN relief agency. But it welcomed a permanent Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the total annexation of almost every Jewish colony built there against all international law.

It’s a given, of course – and has been for days – that this nonsense might just cast some magic dust over the travails of the leaders of America and Israel. As the two rogues, Donald Trump under impeachment and Benjamin Netanyahu charged with corruption, grinned to the applause of their supporters in Washington, it became clear at once that this mendacious document – containing absurdity, burlesque and dreary banality in about equal measure – destroyed forever any hope of an independent Palestinian state of any kind. That’s not what it said, but you only had to glance at the verbiage – where Israel’s occupation, the longest in modern history, was described as a “security footprint” and where the Oslo accord was trashed as an agreement which produced “waves of terror and violence”.

Truly, all must read these 80 pages. And every reader should go through them twice, in case, first time round, they missed some extra egregious indignity inflicted upon the Palestinians.
Palestinian protests against President Trump's Middle East peace plan

The document wasn’t just a gift to Israel. It embodied every Israeli demand ever made to Washington (plus a few more) and effectively destroyed every effort made by the United Nations Security Council; every UN resolution on Israeli withdrawal; every effort of the EU and the Quartet on the Middle East to produce a just and fair resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli war.

In short, Israel will – under this wretched “deal”, doomed though it was within seconds – get all of Jerusalem forever, most of the West Bank, own almost every Jewish colony in occupied land and dominate a disarmed, truncated, neutered Palestinian people who must promise to call Israel the “nation state of the Jewish people” (albeit almost 21 per cent of its people are Arabs), censor its own schoolbooks, arrest and interrogate anyone daring to oppose the Israeli occupier, and who will have a cluster of villages outside Jerusalem’s walls to call a capital.

True, this is a unique and historic document that the Trump menagerie (especially son-in-law Jared Kushner) has produced, since its belief that the Palestinians would dream of accepting such a deranged, farcical set of political demands is without precedent in the western world. But when should we journalists take all the stops out, I asked myself when I’d finished reading the 56 “Visions” – there are others, by the way, in lower case, and several “missions” – and the list of prohibitions imposed upon the Palestinians? These included, we should note, the instruction that “the State of Palestine may not join any international organisation if such membership would contradict commitments of the State of Palestine to demilitarisation and cessation of political and judicial warfare against the State of Israel”. So goodbye as well to the protection of the International Criminal Court.

Some of my colleagues lapsed into apoplexy, like Marwan Bishara of Al Jazeera. Farce, fraud, fury, surrealistic, opportunistic, populist and cynical. He used all these descriptions – but surely he was mincing his words. Gideon Levy, my hero from the Israeli daily Haaretz, was not so apoplectic. He was apocalyptic. It was “the final nail in the coffin of that walking corpse known as the two-state solution”, he wrote, and created a reality “in which international law, the resolutions of the international community and especially international institutions are meaningless”.

There is no Palestinian state, quoth Levy, and there never will be. It’s got to be one democracy between the Jordan and the Mediterranean – equal rights for both Israelis and Palestinians – or Israel is going to be an apartheid state. Trump had created “a world in which the US president’s son-in-law is more powerful than the UN General Assembly. If the settlements are permitted, everything is permitted.” Quite so.

But do we writers and journalists and “experts” and analysts still possess the tools to deal with this mumbo-jumbo? Is this not a moment – not just the end of morality, justice, integrity, dignity – to ask an ever-more important question: when will journalists have to stop taking this stuff (and themselves) seriously? Merely to write about this Trump ballyhoo as if it is real or workable or even discussable is somehow demeaning, humiliating, preposterous. Not just for media rabbits, but for those who must suffer the consequences of this dreadful document; the Palestinians and all who have faithfully supported their perfectly reasonable demands for freedom and fairness.

Watch more
Israelis don’t want to be America’s pawns in the Middle East any more

I realised a few hours after reading it that, for every anti-Israel Muslim who believes in the fantastical, crazed verbiage of the “Zionist conspiracy”, these 80 pages of White House notepaper would only reinforce those mind-boggling beliefs. In cases like this, perhaps we should invite our comedians to become reporters. Or ask our cartoonists to write the story. Or maybe I should turn to that fine old Ripley’s Believe It or Not feature to get the message across. Believe it Or Not: a US president gave a foreign power the right to eternally occupy someone else’s land. To me, that captures the story in 15 words.

But let’s not forget that in return for their abject surrender, the Palestinians will get cash, cash and more cash – millions of greenies set out in pages of graphs and funding plans, and “fast-track” tourism (that phrase is actually used in the document) and massive investment, “social betterment” (sic), “self-determination” (sic again, I guess), and “a path to a dignified national life, respect, security and economic opportunity…”.

And didn’t our Boris Johnson tell Trump it was “a positive step forwards”? And didn’t our Dominic Raab call it “a serious proposal” worthy of “genuine and fair consideration”?

Believe it or not, indeed.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to Trump peace plan: 'No, no and no'

By

Don Jacobson

Palestinians say Trump's "Deal of the Century" for Middle East peace highly favors the Israeli Jewish state. Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI | License Photo

Jan. 29 (UPI) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the leaders of Iran and Turkey have dismissed U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan as a one-sided proposal that ignores Palestinian interests.

At a meeting in the West Bank Tuesday, the leader of the Palestinian Authority called the plan "the slap of the century," as opposed to the "deal of the century" as it was touted by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The proposal calls for a two-state solution, turns over chunks of the West Bank to the Palestinians and makes a conditional offer to place the Palestine capital in a part of East Jerusalem. Trump and Netanyahu said the plan is a "realistic" path to peace, but they didn't at all include Palestinian leaders in drawing up the framework of the proposal"We say a thousand times: No, no and no to the 'deal of the century,'" Abbas said, vowing that the U.S. plan "will not come to pass" and that "our people will send it to the dustbins of history."

RELATED Trump's Mideast peace plan: 2 states, Palestine capital in East Jerusalem

The Palestinians have boycotted the United States after a series of moves made by the Trump administration since 2017 they see as having a pro-Israel bias.

Trump's plan also allows for Israel annexation of territory in the West Bank it occupied after the 1967 Six-Day War. The Palestinians and the United Nations consider the occupation, and the building of Jewish settlements there, to be illegal, and the Palestinians have long demanded that any future state be mapped out along pre-1967 lines with Jerusalem as its capital.

In return for accepting the proposal and renouncing the "terrorism" of the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, Trump and Netanyahu have offered $50 billion in aid.

RELATED Trump hosts Netanyahu, Gantz to unveil Mideast peace deal

Abbas, however, said the offer amounts to a bribe, asserting that "Jerusalem is not for sale" and that the Palestinian people's "rights are not for sale or bartering."

"Will we accept a state without Jerusalem? It is impossible for any Palestinian, Arab, Muslim or Christian child to accept that," he said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif dismissed the plan as a "nightmare."

RELATED Benny Gantz vows to annex Jordan Valley if elected Israeli PM

"The so-called 'Vision for Peace' is simply the dream project of a bankruptcy-ridden real estate developer," he tweeted. "But it is a nightmare for the region and the world. And, hopefully, a wake-up call for all the Muslims who have been barking up the wrong tree."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said any deal in which the Palestinians are denied a say over Jerusalem was "unacceptable."

"Jerusalem is sacred for Muslims," he said. "The plan to give Jerusalem to Israel is absolutely unacceptable. This plan ignores Palestinians' rights and is aimed at legitimizing Israel's occupation."

Palestinians protest against Trump’s Mideast peace plan

January 29, 2020 By Agence France-Presse

The Israeli army announced an increased presence in the West Bank and near Gaza Wednesday evening, as US President Donald Trump’s controversial peace plan sparked outrage among Palestinians.

The plan, seen as overwhelmingly supportive of Israeli goals and drafted with no Palestinian input, gives the Jewish state a US green light to annex key parts of the occupied West Bank.

It was widely cheered in Israel, but sparked fury among Palestinians, with protests breaking out in the West Bank and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

One rocket was fired from the strip Wednesday evening.

In response, the army said, “(Israeli) fighter jets and aircraft struck a number of Hamas terror targets in the southern Gaza Strip.”

Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli security forces clashed in various locations in the West Bank and further Palestinian protests are expected in the coming days.

The Israeli army announced Wednesday it would deploy additional troops in the West Bank and the near the Gaza Strip.

“Following the ongoing situation assessment, it has been decided to reinforce the Judea and Samaria and Gaza Divisions with additional combat troops,” the army said in a statement, using the Israeli terms for the West Bank.

Trump, who unveiled the peace plan on Tuesday at the White House alongside Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with no Palestinian representatives present, said his initiative could succeed where others had failed.

But the plan grants Israel much of what it has sought in decades of international diplomacy, namely control over Jerusalem as its “undivided” capital, rather than a city to share with the Palestinians.

It also offers US approval for Israel to annex the strategically crucial Jordan Valley, which accounts for around 30 percent of the West Bank, as well as other Jewish settlements in the territory.

The terms have been roundly rejected by Palestinian leaders, with president Mahmud Abbas vowing the proposal would end up in the dustbin of history.

Abbas is expected to visit the UN in the next two weeks to address the Security Council and explain his rejection of the plan, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN said Wednesday.

 Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan

Hamas said it could never accept anything short of Jerusalem as capital of a future Palestinian state.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the Palestinians to “come up with a counter-offer”.

“I know the Israelis would be prepared to sit down and negotiate on the basis of the vision that the president laid out,” Pompeo said, as he headed to Britain on a five-nation tour.

– ‘United against the deal’ –

In the West Bank city of Bethlehem, demonstrators threw rocks at Israeli border guards who responded with rounds of tear gas.

Three protesters were hospitalised after being hit by Israeli fire in clashes near Ramallah in the central West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.

 

AFP / Musa AL SHAER A Palestinian demonstrator uses a slingshot during 

clashes with Israeli security forces after a protest in the West Bank city of Bethlehem

In Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, protesters set tyres alight, while others hoisted banners vowing they were “united against the deal of the century”, in a jibe against Trump’s proposals.

Trump’s plan foresees the creation of a “contiguous” Palestinian state but under strict conditions, including a requirement that it be “demilitarised”.

The Palestinians would only be allowed to declare a capital in outer parts of east Jerusalem, beyond an Israeli security wall.

Those terms were warmly received by some in Israel.

“History knocked on our door last night and gave us a unique opportunity to apply Israeli law on all of the settlements in Judea (and) Samaria,” said Israel’s rightwing Defence Minister Naftali Bennett.

The Blue and White party led by Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s main election rival in March 2 polls, embraced Trump’s proposals as offering “a strong, viable basis for advancing a peace accord with the Palestinians”.

But the head of Israel’s leftwing coalition Labour-Gesher-Meretz, Amir Peretz, condemned Netanyahu’s expected move towards “unilateral annexations”.

Meanwhile, on the streets of Tel Aviv, some residents voiced concern that Trump had paid no attention to what the Palestinians actually want.

“It sounds like an excessive implementation of Israel’s ambitions, with harsh, aggressive ignorance of Palestinian ambitions,” said Tel Aviv resident Uri.

– Cautious response –

Major powers and some regional players responded with caution, saying Trump’s project deserves study, while stressing that a durable solution to the conflict can only emerge through Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

The French foreign ministry welcomed Trump’s “efforts” and pledged to “carefully study” his proposal.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, however, slammed Trump’s plan as “completely unacceptable”

 

AFP / SAID KHATIB Palestinian demonstrators burn images of US 

President Donald Trump (C) as they protest against a US brokered 

Middle East peace plan, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip

The ambassadors from three Arab nations — Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain — were at the White House, providing some evidence of Trump’s claim to have growing support around the region.

Saudi Arabia said it “appreciates” Trump’s efforts and called for direct Israeli-Palestinian talks.

Russia, a growing force in Middle East politics, sounded sceptical.

“We do not know if the American proposal is mutually acceptable or not,” Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told Russian news agencies.

Photo: AFP / MANDEL NGAN

Trump embarrassment: Palestinians say Trump’s new plan is ‘biggest scam in modern history'

THE Chief Palestinian diplomat to the UK has slammed President Trump's Middle East peace plan as "one of the biggest scams in modern history" and the realisation of the "Greater Israel project".

By JOHN VARGA, Wed, Jan 29, 2020

Trump Middle East peace plan is 'political theatre' says expert

The US President launched his vision for the Middle East at the White House on Tuesday, alongside the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The main features of the plan envisage establishing Jerusalem as Israel’s “undivided” capital, as well as recognising the vast majority of Israeli settlements on occupied territory as part of the country. In addition, the Jordan valley, which makes up a third of the West Bank, would be transferred to Israeli ownership.

As a form of compensation, Palestinians are to be offered land in the desert near Gaza.

Appearing on the BBC’s Newsnight on Tuesday, Husam Zomlot said: “There was no plan, there was no deal proposed today. It was one of the biggest scams in modern history. It is just a scam.”

Mr Zomlot suggested that this “political theatre” was cooked up to divert attention from the domestic problems that both Trump and Mr Netanyahu currently face.

The US President is embroiled in an impeachment trial, while the Israeli Prime Minister could be prosecuted for corruption, if he loses the upcoming election.
 

Husam Zomlot, UK Palestinian diplomat (Image: BBC Newsnight)


  

Emiliy Maitlis, BBC Newsnight (Image: BBC Newsnight)

Pressed by Emily Maitlis on whether he had actually read and studied the details of the proposals, the diplomat replied that the US administration had never intended to engage seriously with the Palestinians and their agenda.

He said: “I was in Washington in 2017, President Abbas met President Trump four times in a matter of weeks.

“We met his team thirty two times, even more, Kushner, Greenblatt and the others, and all of a sudden we get a phone call from the State Department that our mission is shuttered.

“This is not an administration that is really interested in engaging Palestinians.”
 

BBC Newsnight with Emiliy Maitlis and Husam Zomlot (Image: BBC Newsnight)

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Trump sees historic peace deal between Israel and Palestine rejected

Mr Zomlot argued that Mr Kushner’s plan was only ever about realising the dreams of Israel’s ultra nationalists to build a a larger Israeli state.

He explained: “From the beginning this was a process of unleashing the ‘Greater Israel Project’.

“This was about endorsing the Settler movement. No wonder what you saw today in that hall, only the extreme ultra nationalist elements of Israel, the Settler leader were in that audience.”

Trump claimed that the plan represented a ‘big step’ towards peace and said that he “was not elected to do small things or shy away from big problems.”
  
US President and Benjamin Netanyahu (Image: GETTY)
 
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (Image: GETTY)

The US President argued that the Palestinians would benefit economically from the plan’s provisions.

He said it would lead to one million new jobs for Palestinians over the next 10 years, as well as an investment of $50 billion in the new state.

Mr Netanyahu hailed the proposal as “a great plan for Israel, it’s a great plan for peace”.
 

Middle East Map (Image: EXPRESS)

The US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, who played a key part in devising the plan, called the proposals a ““huge advancement in the peace process” because he said that for the first time Israel has delineated territorial concessions.

However, the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, slammed the deal as “a conspiracy” that would be rejected, while the Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhr described the document as worthless.

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

Prince Charles and President Mahmoud Abbas (Image: GETTY)

Germany, Europe react to Trump's Middle East peace plan

Following Trump's release of his Israeli-Palestinian plan, world leaders have responded to his proposal of a two-state solution with Israeli settlements. The plan calls for a minimum four-year freeze in settlements



Leaders from around the world have responded with mixed reactions to US President Donald Trump's long-awaited Middle East plan unveiled on Tuesday.

The proposal was released alongside Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington. Palestinian leaders said they were not invited to attend the talks and preemptively rejected the plan. Trump's proposal made concessions to Palestinians — but under terms that they have previously ruled out, such as accepting West Bank settlements.

Europe and the UN were lukewarm and cautious after the peace plan was released.

Germany

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has called for a balanced approach to breaking the deadlock. "Only a negotiated two-state solution, acceptable to both sides, can lead to a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians," he said.

Maas added that Trump's proposal raised questions "about the involvement of the conflicting parties in a negotiation process and their relationship to recognized international parameters and legal positions."

Representatives from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD), parties within the grand coalition, doubted that Trump's plan would achieve sustainable peace in the Middle East.

Jürgen Hardt, a foreign policy spokesman for Angela Merkel's CDU/CSU alliance in parliament, told DW that while he welcomed Trump "sticking with the two-state solution," he also worried that "probably some of the demands he mentioned towards Palestinians concerning the territories will not open the door for negotiations."

Hardt also noted that "every new attempt at the peace process which is a failure in the end might increase frustration on both sides and maybe increase the confrontation and not decrease it. Therefore, we have to be very careful with such proposals."


United Nations

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the UN supports two states living in peace and security within recognized borders, on the basis of the pre-1967 lines.

"The position of the United Nations on the two-state solution has been defined, throughout the years, by relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions by which the Secretariat is bound," said Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for Guterres.

European Union

The EU urged Israelis and Palestinians to study the proposal carefully.

Josep Borrell, the EU's highest-ranking diplomat, said the block will "study and assess" Trump's plans on the basis of its commitment to a "negotiated and viable two-state solution that takes into account the legitimate aspirations of both the Palestinians and the Israelis."

Paris was open to Trump's efforts to come up with a plan, but said it would look closer at the details. "France welcomes President Trump's efforts and will study closely the peace program he has presented," said a statement from the French foreign ministry.

The statement also reiterated France's wish for a two-state solution.

UK

Britain, which is set to depart from the EU on Friday, was much warmer to Washington's proposals.

"This is clearly a serious proposal, reflecting extensive time and effort," British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a statement.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, speaking about the proposal in parliament on Wednesday, stated, "No peace plan is perfect but this has the merit of a two-state solution, it is a two-state solution, it would ensure that Jerusalem is both the capital of Israel and of the Palestinian people."

Russia

Russia said it would assess the proposal and called on Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate directly to find a "mutually acceptable compromise."

Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov added, "We do not know if the American proposal is mutually acceptable or not. We must wait for the reaction of the parties."

The White House

Trump called the plan a "win-win" for both Israel and Palestinians and said Palestinians should not miss their chance at independence.

"It's going to work," Trump said as he presented the proposal at a White House ceremony.

"(Palestinian) President Abbas, I want you to know, that if you chose the path to peace, America and many other countries ... we will be there to help you in so many different ways," he said. "And we will be there every step of the way."

Meanwhile, Netanyahu said the plan was "a great plan for Israel. It's a great plan for peace."

Trump’s Mideast peace plan: Peace or politics?

Palestinian leaders

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected the plan as "nonsense'' and promised to "resist the deal in all its forms."

"This conspiracy deal will not pass. Our people will take it to the dustbin of history," Abbas said.

Hundreds of Palestinians protested in the Gaza Strip ahead of the unveiling of the plan. More protests were expected throughout Wednesday.

Hamas, a Palestinian militant Islamist group, called Trump's proposal a "hostile deal."

Palestinians reject Middle East peace plan

Arab League

The Arab League will hold an urgent meeting on Saturday in response to Trump's proposal. Abbas is expected to attend.

Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the plan reveals a waste of legitimate rights of Palestinians.

"Our identity as Arabs and Muslims is over ... I felt totally ashamed watching Trump with the Israeli leader," Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb said.

However, Gheit added that the League will study "the American vision carefully." "We are open to any serious effort made to achieve peace," he said.

Israel

Israel, delighted with the proposal, vowed to immediately urge forward its plans to annex the strategic Jordan valley and all the Israeli settlements in occupied territories.

Netanyahu said he would ask his Cabinet to approve the annexation plans in their next meeting on Sunday, which could spark anger among Palestinians.

"This dictates once and for all the eastern border of Israel," Netanyahu told reporters. "Israel is getting an immediate American recognition of Israeli sovereignty on all the settlements, without exceptions.''

The longtime Israeli leader said the proposal was "a great plan for Israel" and "a great plan for peace." He referred to Trump as "the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House."

mvb/stb (AP, AFP, Reuters)

Opinion: Trump's Middle East 'peace plan' delivers neither

US President Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan is largely aligned with Israeli interests, while the Palestinians' concerns are ignored. It will not end the conflict in the region, says DW's Rainer Sollich.

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict has been raging for decades. Neither wars, terror attacks, uprisings, international treaties, peace agreements nor repeated promises to honor UN resolutions have changed a thing. There is deep mistrust between both parties, and practically no willingness to strike any kind of historic compromise to achieve peace.

In light of this gloomy status quo, the announcement by a US president to present a fresh peace plan to get things moving again should have been cause for cautious optimism.

A one-sided deal

But it's not. President Donald Trump is not exactly known for visionary peace plans. And so, unsurprisingly, his suggestions to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict offer no new ideas or solutions. On the contrary, what Trump has hailed as the "deal of the century" is actually a misnomer. It is not a deal in the actual sense of the word, it does not reflect a compromise between two equal partners. Instead, it is an attempt to impose Trump's ideas on the Palestinians.

DW's Rainer Sollich

The president's so-called deal largely caters to Israel's security interests, save for a few symbolic concessions to the Palestinians. The Palestinians, who were not even consulted in the formulation of the plan, would be the clear losers should this proposal be implemented. They could lose areas currently under Israeli occupation or controlled by settlers though annexation — even though the Palestinians are entitled to these lands by international law.

Trump's plan supposedly envisions an independent Palestinian state, though they must be subordinate to Israeli security interests and completely demilitarize. Jerusalem is to become Israel's "undivided" capital — as Trump unilaterally declared in 2017 — and the Palestinians may retain some eastern neighborhoods as their future "capital."

Trump declared that his plan might be the last opportunity Palestinians ever have to get their own state. He was, in others words, telling them to seize this last, final chance. Trump's plan, however, will not create two equal states. Instead, it will seriously disadvantage the Palestinians.

Free reign for Israel

This approach is immoral and degrading because it unfairly favors the more powerful Israeli side. But the approach is also highly dangerous as it effectively leaves Israel free reign to annex further Palestinian territory.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be pleased with Trump's plan — it's been a while since any Israeli leader received such broad backing from Washington. This could lend him momentum in the election campaign, and might distract from the corruption charges he faces.

Massive criticism is expected from Arab and Muslim leaders, even though not all of it will be genuine. Extremist elements, meanwhile, will happily instrumentalize this plan to carry out terrorist attacks and perpetrate violence. None of this will do anything to bring peace to the Middle East.

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