TEL AVIV – President Donald Trump’s long-anticipated peace plan is an effort to “think out of the box and capture the imagination and hopes of both sides for a better life,” U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman told the Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
Friedman, who is one of the architects of the plan along with Trump’s senior advisor Jared Kushner and special Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt, dismissed claims that neither Israel nor the Palestinians are particularly enthusiastic about the so-called “deal of the century.”
“I don’t think there is a lack of interest; I think there is exhaustion and frustration from so many previous failed efforts,” Friedman said.
The Palestinian Authority’s rejection of the plan sight unseen will not stop the U.S. from unveiling it, with the ambassador saying the peace team will continue to “calibrate” matters and is “cognizant of all the factors implicated by the roll out.”
“The Palestinian people deserve the opportunity to consider a meaningful alternative to the status quo, as does Israel,” he said. “We see value in presenting that vision, even if the initial Palestinian leadership reaction is negative.”
In a Tuesday interview at a Time magazine conference in New York, Kushner said the plan would employ a “bottom up” approach.
“Our focus is really on the bottom up, which is how do you make the lives of the Palestinian people better? What can you resolve to allow these areas to become more investable? We deal with all the core status issues because you have to do it, but we’ve also built a robust business plan for the whole region,” Kushner said, adding the idea was to have a solution first “and then we’ll work on a process to try to get there.”
Expounding on Kushner’s remarks, Friedman said, “Our view is that people need to understand the endgame before they begin.”
“There have been many ‘bridges to nowhere’ precisely because everyone was focused on the process, even to the exclusion of the result,” he said. “History tells us that this approach will continue to fail.”
The US envoy would not directly address whether Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights was part of a larger plan that includes recognizing the West Bank as Israeli territory.
“The Golan decision was based upon the reality that Israel has governed the Golan for 52 years and there exists no scenario whereby Israel could have a safe and secure border with Syria — a dangerous and despotic regime — except by retaining full sovereignty over the Golan Heights,” Friedman told the Post.
“I strongly believe that what President Trump has done in this region should and will be preserved well beyond his remaining (hopefully six) years in office,” he said.
Friedman addressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Tuesday declaration that he would name a Golan Heights community after Trump, saying he was sure the US president “appreciates the prime minister’s sentiment.”
On Tuesday, newly appointed PA Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said the Trump administration’s decisions to cut aid and recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital were punitive measures meant to “blackmail” the Palestinians into accepting a peace deal.
“We have never looked at any cut to financial aid as punishment or blackmail,” he said. “Funding decisions are made by the administration solely on the basis of whether they receive a return — be it diplomatic, humanitarian or otherwise — on hard-earned taxpayer money.”
Friedman added that Trump’s decision to relocate the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem “simply fulfilled the will of the American people that numerous presidents before him promised, but failed, to actualize. His decision was grounded in history, truth and fact.”