Friedman & New York Times resurrect Trump’s deal of the century

New York Times Opinion Columnist Thomas Friedman has offered President-elect Donald Trump some friendly advice on resolving the Arab-Jewish conflict just 14 days after Trump’s landslide victory.

Friedman is a powerful influencer:

• Having received a call from Trump four years ago thanking Friedman for endorsing Trump’s Abraham Accords

• Being a confidante of outgoing President Biden

·       Having been a driving force in formulating the 2002 two-state solution proposed by Saudi Arabia overturning 21 years of Saudi foreign policy and endorsed as the Arab Peace Initiative 2002

In an op-ed headlined “How Trump Can Earn a Place in History That He Did Not Expect” Friedman writes:

“I’ve just spent a week in Israel and the U.A.E. talking to political, military and business leaders, Jews and Palestinians and Arabs about what Trump might do in their region this time around. There is enormous opportunity and appetite for a game-changing deal — if Trump wants to reach for it and only if he does it right.

Trump has a starting point: the plan for a two-state solution that he put out in January 2020, titled “Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People.” Neither side will embrace it as it is currently written, and the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, and the ensuing war in Gaza will complicate any deal enormously. But the “vision” in the title of Trump’s plan is a kick-starter for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations post-Gaza. It’s still the only detailed peace map that any president has publicly presented to create two states since the Clinton parameters, set out by Clinton 24 years ago.”

Yet Friedman wrote when Trump’s plan was released:

“Given the timing of the release on Tuesday of President Trump’s Middle East peace plan, I have to begin by asking: Is this plan about two states for two peoples or is it about one diversion for two dirty leaders?

It sure feels like the latter. After all, both President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are, in effect, facing job-threatening charges — Trump for obstruction of Congress and abuse of power and Bibi, who was literally indicted on Tuesday, for fraud, bribery and breach of trust. They both had a huge need to change the subject and shore up their common base of right-wing Jews and evangelicals.

If I were Jared Kushner and had worked for three years on a peace plan — and was serious about it getting a fair and full hearing from all sides — there is no way I would have released it right now. This smells.”

Friedman now asserts that Trump’s plan was:

“not the plan I would’ve put out, and it involved zero Palestinian input, but it was a starting point.”  

Friedman omits mentioning that he wrote in 2020:

 “Palestinian leaders have been feckless and divided for some time; they boycotted the design of this plan. Still, if I were them, I’d tell Trump, “Yes, but we will use this plan as a floor in negotiations with Israelis, not a ceiling.” They would surely gain a lot of U.S., Arab and European good will for trying that approach. What do they have to lose?”

Palestinian leaders ignored Friedman’s advice – missing Trump’s two-state solution bandwagon.

An alternative solution to Trump’s deal emerged in 2022: The Saudi-based Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution (HKOPS) calling for the merger of Jordan, Gaza and part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into one territorial entity.

I urged Friedman in September 2022 to write an article analysing HKOPS – but he refused - stating it was not something for him to do just then. Surely now would be the opportune time Mr. Influencer.