Feb. 7 (UPI) — Over 100 House Democrats signed a letter, released on Friday, critical of President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the Middle East.
The two-page letter, with seven pagers of signatures, was led by Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Calif., and warns that a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine would be impossible under the plan. At a White House ceremony on Jan. 27 unveiling Trump’s 200-page peace plan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to move forward on establishing additional settlements and exercising Israeli control of the disputed West Bank area.
Netanyahu, facing corruption charges, a March 2 election and a vote in Israel’s parliament on accepting Trump’s plan, has since retreated from the promise.
The letter says the proposed plan “will exacerbate and entrench conflict, rather than resolve it,” and noted that Israel must not interpret it “as a license to violate international law by annexing all or portions of the West Bank.”
It also questions the timing of the peace plan’s rollout, coming only weeks before the next election in Israel. It accuses Trump of “motives unrelated to helping solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” and calls it “an inappropriate intervention in a foreign election.”
The majority of Arab states, and the Palestinian Authority, have already rejected the plan, saying that Palestine would exist in name only and “not constitute statehood,” awarding Palestine with non-contiguous territory controlled by Israeli security forces.
In December, Lowenthal drafted a House resolution that expressed U.S. support for the two-state solution. It passed in the House by 226 to 188.
