President Donald Trump’s peace team is expected to decide in the coming days whether to publish the Deal of the Century—the peace proposal for Israel and the Palestinian Authority—now, despite the fact that Israel still does not have an elected government, or shelf it until after the US elections, Israel Hayom reported Sunday.
The composing of the Deal of the Century – named as such by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, not by anyone in the White House – was completed about a year ago, and President Trump’s peace team, led by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, initially decided to refrain from publishing it, to avoid the appearance of becoming involved in Israel’s election politics.
A surefire way to create resentment against the deal in both camps in Israel would have been to dump it on the already broiling election campaign. Timing is everything, especially in politics.
Indeed, following the September election, the White House decided to patiently await the outcome—expecting either a rightwing or a leftwing Israeli government to emerge, at which point they would decide when to unveil the plan.
Now that Israel has launched a third election campaign in a year, which is just as likely to end in a draw, and with the current Trump administration itself looking at a tough election season, the American peace team must decide now, probably before the end of the year, to run with it, come what may, or stash the deal until January 2021.
Trump himself mentioned the US peace plan for Israel and the Palestinian Authority when he appeared a week ago at the annual conference of the Israeli-American Council (IAC) in Hollywood, Florida, and said: “A lot of people say that can’t be done. They say that’s the toughest of all deals, but if Jared Kushner can’t do it, it can’t be done.”