Former State Dept Envoy Says 2020 Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plan Still Relevant
by Emmitt Barry, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – The 2020 Israeli-Palestinian peace plan put forward by President-elect Donald Trump is set to be revisited upon his return to office in January 2021, according to a former senior aide who is reportedly part of Trump’s transition team.
In a CNN interview, Brian Hook, a key figure in the Abraham Accords, former U.S. envoy to Iran, and Senior Policy Advisor to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, stated, “Much of the work that was done to build a peace plan in the Middle East in 2020 is still relevant today.”
He has reportedly been selected for President-elect Donald Trump’s State Department transition team.
“If you look at the real important work that Jared Kushner did, when he was essentially leading so much of the diplomacy in the Middle East, he put forward a political and economic vision for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians that many Arab governments officially said was a credible, good-faith effort, and they called for both sides to come to the table,” Hook told CNN.
“We put forward many hundreds of pages of economic and political vision for peace between [Israel and Palestinians] and I think so much of that work is still relevant today,” Hook stated.
Saudi Arabia is currently considering normalizing relations with Israel but stipulates that such normalization must coincide with the establishment of a Palestinian State.
When asked about the conditions Riyadh would require for normalizing relations, Hook noted that Israel’s current focus was elsewhere: “There are many Israelis right now who are focused on other things, specifically keeping safe from the kind of evil terrorism they endured on October 7,” he stated.
The 2020 Trump peace plan proposed allowing Israel to annex all its settlements in the West Bank while offering the Palestinians a route to form a semi-contiguous state on the remaining land.
The Palestinian Authority immediately rejected the plan.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted the plan but with reservations. At the same time, his settler allies, who are now part of his coalition, opposed it because it included provisions for a potential Palestinian state.
If you are interested in articles produced by Worthy News, please check out our FREE sydication service available to churches or online Christian ministries. To find out more, visit Worthy Plugins.