Too Soon to Tell, Check this Space in Five Years

Having slept on it, I woke up still not liking Trump, still not liking Netanyahu and still untrusting of Palestinian Arab intentions.

The deal of the century is not strictly-speaking a peace plan. It is an effort to impose a plan on one side. I did not like the approach when the EU or previous US administrations tried it against us. I don't like it now.

Does this plan strategically address Israel’s demographic problem? Does it try to build an Israeli domestic consensus?

What it does is change the conversation. From Netanyahu's indictment and from the impeached Trump's Bolton problem to sovereignty over the settlement blocs and annexation of parts of the strategic West Bank.

That the announcement was a political ploy aimed (beyond changing the topic) at domestic audiences (evangelicals in the US and the strident right in Israel) is now beside the point.

I think David Ignatius  (no Philo-Zionist I admit) is right that this is a "squeeze play" against the Palestinians. Ehud Barak tried that in July 2000 and it took until September 2000 to comprehend the effect (the second intifada).

Trump and Netanyahu are rolling the dice. Maybe a third intifada won't break out. Maybe it will all be a Big Yawn. 

The Arab League is trying to keep a low profile, but the PLO is pushing for a meeting on Saturday, Feb. 2. While the Gulf States are putting out vague statements that we are free to interpret as supportive of Trump. 

The fundamental reason the Palestinians reject this non-peace plan is that they do not want a state alongside Israel (regardless of its contours).  

They still dream of supplanting Israel. 

They will never agree to the legitimacy of a Jewish state anywhere in the Middle East. They still reject the Balfour Declaration for God's sake!

Summing up, it is too early to tell what it all means.

Better to have done nothing if you ask me and let Israelis vote in peace.