US President Donald Trump’s so-called deal of the century on the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a “joke” and proves that the United States is occupied by the Zionist regime just as Palestine is, says an American scholar and political commentator. RNA - Kevin Barrett, a political analyst in Madison, Wisconsin, made the remarks during a Friday edition of Press TV’s The Debate program while commenting on Trump’s proposed plan for the resolution of Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Washington had announced the plan — a brainchild of Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner and other key pro-Israeli figures — years ago, but had withheld the details.
Defying international outcry, Trump on Tuesday announced the general provisions of the plan at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side.
The US president reiterated his hugely-contentious recognition in late 2017 of the holy occupied city of Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s “undivided capital,” although Palestinians have historically wanted the city’s eastern part as the capital of their future state.
He said the deal featured an economic portion that earmarks $50 billion in monetary allocations to Palestinians, Jordan, and Egypt. Palestinians have denounced this as a means of bribing them into selling their rights.
Still contentiously, Trump said that the Israeli settlers, who have been housed in illegal apartment blocks since Tel Aviv’s occupation of the Palestinian territory of the West Bank in 1967, would not be moved under the deal.
“This peace plan is a joke and obviously was drafted precisely to be rejected. It was not ever a peace plan in the first place. The positive side of it is that this ridiculous –so-called deal of the century makes it absolutely clear now to everyone, the whole world now knows that the US is just as occupied by the Zionists as Palestine is and cannot be an honest broker,” Barrett told Press TV.
Asked for his take on the international reaction to the deal, the American scholar said, “The most independent countries in the region are the ones with the strongest reaction against this ridiculous so-called peace plan. So, Iran comes out number one as the one fully independent country in the region — that’s why they are hated by the Zionists — and ways behind that is NATO occupied Turkey … and the rest of the region is gradually understanding that the era of US occupation on behalf of Zionism is coming to an end.”
Jim W. Dean, the managing editor of Veterans Today from Atlanta, was the other panelist invited to the show, who described Trump’s proposed plan and its economic incentives as a “proposed buyout.”
“I would describe it as a proposed buyout because they are going to give them a little bit now and they will pay the rest of it over time. Palestinians have to give up everything they had to give up on day one, so this right away doesn’t sound too good a deal,” Dean underlined.
Palestinian leaders, who severed all ties with Washington in late 2017 after Trump controversially recognized Jerusalem al-Quds as the capital of the Israeli regime, immediately rejected the plan, with President Mahmoud Abbas saying it “belongs to the dustbin of history.”
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani condemned Trump's so-called peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as "the most despicable plan of the century."
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country will never recognize and accept the US so-called peace plan.
He underscored that Jerusalem al-Quds is a “red line” for Turkey, and the Israeli-occupied sacred city is the key to world peace as it has been for thousands of years.
Thousands of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip poured out onto the street in immediate condemnation of the plan.
Muslims all across the world have also expressed solidarity with the Palestinian cause and denounced the Trump's proposed plan.
847/940