Former top European officials ready to sabotage Trump’s Mideast peace plan

Dozens of former European and UN leaders are working to sabotage Trump’s “deal of the century” if it doesn’t back a Palestinian state.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Over three dozen former top European officials sent a letter Sunday urging the European Union (EU) to “stand by” the two-state paradigm to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan does not do so, The Guardian reported.

The paper published the missive sent by 29 previous foreign ministers, six past prime ministers and two former UN secretaries-general to Federica Mogherini, whose position is equivalent to foreign secretary in the European Union.

In it, they demanded that Europe “stand by our principled parameters for peace in Israel-Palestine” and maintain the goal of “a Palestinian state alongside Israel on borders based on the pre-1967 lines with mutually agreed, minimal and equal land swaps; with Jerusalem as the capital for both states,” as well as demanding a solution to the wedge issue that Palestinians frame as the “refugee” problem.

They said that the EU should “reject any plan that does not meet this standard,” and even “pursue its own course of action” if necessary.

The signatories claimed that Israel and the “Palestinian territories are sliding into a one-state reality of unequal rights,” which they said “cannot continue.”

While the signatories castigated the current American administration for “depart[ing] from longstanding US policy” and “distanc[ing] itself from established international legal norms,” the proof for these accusations amounted to no more than American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and “indifference” to the expansion of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, areas in which the Palestinians claim Israel cannot build

They also slammed the U.S. for defunding of the UN’s Palestinian agency (UNRWA) last year, a step taken based on the organization’s perpetuation of the refugee problem and role in Palestinian incitement to commit violence against Israelis.

Although the American peace plan, dubbed “the Deal of the Century,” has yet to be unveiled, with  May or June current target months, there have been reports that it contains less than what the Palestinians and Europeans have demanded for years.

Mentioning three of the possible issues, the signatories said, “A plan that reduces Palestinian statehood to an entity devoid of sovereignty, territorial contiguity and economic viability” would “fatally damage the cause of a durable peace for Palestinians and Israelis alike.”