Rod Reuven Dovid Bryant and Jerry Gordon of Israel News Talk Radio-Beyond the Matrix interviewed Daniel Diker, Director of the Political Warfare Program at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
We addressed the latest developments in the Trump Peace Plan leaked from a White House briefing according to both Ha’aretz and Channel 13 reports. The elements of the plan include assigning the Palestinians some 85% percent of the West Bank disputed territories, except for the large settlement blocks that would be retained by Israel.
Ceding significant parts of East Jerusalem for a proposed Palestinian State Capital appears to be a non-starter for most Israelis and supporters. PA President Mahmoud Abbas has long rejected the Trump Peace Plan. As Diker notes, Israel serves as an example of normalized relations with Arab citizens and residents in Jerusalem and throughout Israel, as well as the Arab -Jewish industrial zones in area C of the West Bank .
Diker notes that Israel is more concerned about the wider regional issues of Iran’s nuclearization and destabilization of the entire Middle East. Diker discusses the JCPA assessment of the ‘bottom up’ Israeli normalization alternatives focused on confidence building by expanding employment opportunities for Palestinians at market wages in the West Bank industrial parks that employ from some 30,000 Palestinians whose employment rights are protected by Israeli Labor laws. He also revealed the historic confederation discussions between Israel and Jordan in the mid-1980’s that serve as a precedent for a regional federative approach to Arab stability and security today.
Diker reveals the emergence of groundbreaking federal sovereignty models in JCPA discussions with Middle East Arab and minority ethnic/ religious groups that appear to have support among democratic dissidents in both Syria and Iraq. Diker suggests that the looming Israeli April 2019 snap elections were triggered by several possible indictments of Israel PM Netanyahu and the opportunity to enhance both his and Likud standing in the new Knesset, even if indictments are announced before elections.
Diker discusses the split of the United Arab list into two Knesset factions avoiding national security problems that would have arisen had it remained one united Arab list with its leader Ayman Odeh legally entitled to receive the most classified intelligence by heading the what would likely have been the largest opposition party in the new Knesset.
Diker believes that the end of Israel’s ‘ambiguity’ policies regarding air strikes against Iran and proxy Shi’ite militias targets in both Syria and Iraq indicate that the gloves are off in the battle against Tehran’s quest for regional hegemony, while simultaneously walking a diplomatic and security tightrope opposite Russia and Turkey who see themselves as strategic shapers of the self destructing Arab state system.