ZOA Says Trump's 'Peace Deal' Disastrous for Israel

JERUSALEM, Israel – The London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat presented Israel and the Jewish world with a supposed preview of the Trump administration's "peace plan" to resolve the Israeli-Arab conflict.

In a mince-no-words statement, Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein explained how the alleged plan breaks down, literally, for the Jewish state.

Klein titled his remarks, "ZOA: If Reports about Trump Administration's 'Peace Deal' are True, It's a Disaster" and subtitled it, "Deal Would End Pres. Trump's Reputation as Israel's Greatest Friend."

Whether Asharq Al-Awsat has its facts straight or it doesn't – whether they're tainted, slanted or really represent elements of the Trump administration's peace initiative – Klein explains why such actions would effectively end Donald Trump's reputation as "Israel's greatest friend."

For decades, international heads of state have claimed to understand – and even sympathize with – the challenges Israel has faced over the years. Today, as it plans its 70th anniversary celebration, the proposed plan, if accurate, would put its very existence in peril.

Trump's December 7th announcement acknowledging Jerusalem as Israel's capital brought him both accolades – from Israelis and their supporters – and curses from Arab League and European Union member nations, among others, who support the Palestinian narrative and discount Israel's.

From dividing Jerusalem, to uprooting some 100,000 Jews from their homes and communities in Judea and Samaria, to placing Jerusalem's Old City under international guardianship, to pouring billions into what has proven to be a corrupt, terror-inciting government, the plan presented and endorsed by Muslim states in the Middle East would accomplish what Israel's enemies have been threatening for years: the annihilation of the Jewish state.

"It's important to remember that every promise the P.A. has made in its signed agreements has been broken," Klein writes. "The minute the ink was dry on an agreement, the Palestinian Arab state would once again demand a so-called 'right of return.' After the Iran deal, we don't need to create another catastrophic, destabilizing Middle East Deal."

The "right of return" demands that more than 5 million descendants of Arabs who left Israel in 1948 as their leaders urged have the right to return to their former homes.

"There are only approximately 30,000 real Palestinian Arab refugees alive today," Klein notes. "A 'just settlement' does not mean that grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Arabs who left Israel at the behest of the Arab League in 1947, when the Arabs went to war against Israel, refusing the initial two-state partition, can now move in and overrun Israel."  

He concludes, "We strongly urge the Trump administration to also insist that before any peace plan can be placed on the table, agreed to and implemented, the P.A. must end its anti-Israel incitement, terrorism and heinous $365 million per year of payments to terrorists to murder Jews, for at least a year, to demonstrate that the P.A. is willing to live in peace with the Jewish state."

For millennia, Jews have prayed and God has answered. The Bible provides a detailed and faithful accounting of the relationship between the Israelites and their God. One can take courage from the many stories of God's divine intervention in the bleakest of circumstances.  

While no one knows what tomorrow holds, those who believe in God's promises know He will fulfill every word He has spoken.