News

Kushner plan demands Palestinians ‘surrender’ but they may commit suicide first — French diplomat

The Atlantic posted an interview with Gerard Araud, the outgoing French ambassador to the U.S. He had some biting comments about Jared Kushner and the Trump peace plan.

The plan serves the more powerful party, the Israelis; Jared Kushner has no guts; “he is totally in real-estate mode.” Trump told Macron, “I have given everything to the Israelis; the Israelis will have to give me something.” And Palestinians may commit suicide before they accept the plan.

Yara Bayoumy: Your career started out in the Middle East. Where do you see the situation there now, especially with the peace process?

Gérard Araud: I’m close to Jared Kushner … Everywhere in the history of mankind, when there is a negotiation between two sides, the more powerful [party] is imposing terms on the weaker party. That’s the basis of Jared Kushner’s [peace plan]—it will be a proposal very close to what the Israelis want. Is it doomed to fail? I should say 99 percent yes, but 1 percent, you never forget the 1 percent. Trump is uniquely able to push the Israelis, because he is so popular in Israel.

Bayoumy: But Trump hasn’t pushed the Israelis so far.

Araud: Exactly, but if need be, he may do it. Once Trump told Macron, “I have given everything to the Israelis; the Israelis will have to give me something.” He is totally transactional. He is more popular than [Benjamin] Netanyahu in Israel, so the Israelis trust him. That’s the first bet, Kushner told me. The second is that the Palestinians may consider, it’s their last chance to get limited sovereignty. And the third element is Kushner is going to pour money on the Palestinians. Don’t forget, the Arabs are behind the Americans. The plan is 50 pages, we were told, very precise; we don’t know what is in the plan. But we’ll see.

The problem is that the disproportion of power is such between the two sides that the strongest may conclude that they have no interest to make concessions. And also the fact that the status quo is extremely comfortable for Israel. Because they [can] have the cake and eat it.  They have the West Bank, but at the same time they don’t have to make the painful decision about the Palestinians, really making them really, totally stateless or making them citizens of Israel. They won’t make them citizens of Israel. So they will have to make it official, which is we know the situation, which is an apartheid. There will be officially an apartheid state. They are in fact already.

Bayoumy: How do you feel Kushner approached the peace plan?

Araud: He is totally in real-estate mode. He is totally dry. He’s extremely smart, but he has no guts. He doesn’t know the history. And in a sense, it’s good—we are not here to say who is right, who is wrong; we are trying to find a way. So in a sense, I like it, but at the same time he is so rational, and he is so pro-Israeli also, that he may neglect the point that if you offer the Palestinians the choice between surrendering and committing suicide, they may decide the latter. Somebody like Kushner doesn’t understand that.

36 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

The naiveté of this interview is incredible. How do you wind down an IDF mandate that fails to respect any boundaries (PA areas A and B), sovereignty of Lebanon, Syria, et. al. and for whom Palestinian untermenschen are ruthlessly slaughtered in the name of existential security. The largest threat to any peace arrangement is Israel’s exceptionalism (laws are important for everyone but us), hyperaggression and culture of absolute and unmitigated impunity for those of the Jewish faith/ethnic heritage.

Jewish adolescent aggression and racism is encouraged, cemented and amplified through every adolescent’s IDF training. Particularly as regards “Arabs”. Given the history of the Oslo betrayal by Israel (consider Netanyahu’s comments), it is not surprising that the Palestinians – in the realistic absence of hope, respect for nationalistic aspirations, guarantee of personal safety for children and adults, as well as opportunity for productive livelihood – might well choose suicide.

Trump & Kushner are almost certainly in criminal violation of 18 U.S. Code § 1091 (c) & (d). While the President is supreme in foreign policy matters, he and his advisors may not violate the US federal code any more than they may pull out guns and start shooting people.

If the US did not want those under US jurisdiction to commit federal criminal violations when they perpetrate genocide, incite genocide, attempt genocide, or conspire in genocide, the US Congress should not have passed a bill, and the president should not have signed into law a bill enabling The International Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the US federal code. Allowing Trump and Kushner to get away with these criminal violations undermines the rule of law in the USA.

Araud is completely wrong when he asserts “we are not here to say who is right, who is wrong.” The international community has to decide which continues: The State of Israel or the International Anti-Genocide Legal Regime. They can’t co-exist because the State of Israel was criminally founded in genocide after the starting point of the international anti-genocide legal regime. This legal regime cannot be taken seriously if white racist European colonial-settlers get a pass to commit genocidal acts either in 1947-8 or today.

Araud: Exactly, but if need be, he may do it. Once Trump told Macron, “I have given everything to the Israelis; the Israelis will have to give me something.” He is totally transactional. …

Trump is an egotistical, narcissistic chump. The only thing the Israelis have to do is stroke his ego and he’ll spin it as an achievement of historical significance.

Trust me, no-one has ever praised an American president the way the Israelis have praised me. And that’s because they know that my plan is the best plan, the greatest plan, that any American president has ever come up with.

How did we go from even W supporting a two state solution to this? Obama did not do one tangible thing to push the Israelis to make a just settlement, and the rest was history. Obama was indeed a cruel hoax, especially for the Palestinians.

I think that Mr. Arnaud sounds cynically knowing but I don’t think he knows anything more than we do. It’s a bit difficult even to make out what he thinks: one minute the Palestinians are to surrender, the next Trump is to push the Israelis into conceding something. I don’t quite know what surrender means unless the Palestinians are actually to move out en masse – and I find it hard to believe that even Trump is yet ready for that or that anyone concerned could afford the enormous expenses involved.