The unacceptable scheme is further proof of a geopolitical know-nothing US president — on top of his contempt for ordinary people everywhere, concerned only about power politics and self-enrichment.

Polls so far show no bump for Netanyahu after the scheme’s unveiling, his Likud party projected to win 33 or 34 of 120 Knesset seats in March 2 elections to 35 seats for Gantz-led Blue and White party — both leading parties deadlocked as in April and September last year, elections a few weeks away.

According to Channel 12 and 13 polls, around half of Israelis support the Trump scheme, about one-fourth opposed. Others are undecided or don’t know.

B’Tselem slammed the scheme, equating it to “Swiss cheese with the cheese being offered to the Israelis and the holes to the Palestinians,” adding:

The scheme “legitimizes, entrenches and even expands the scope of Israel’s human rights abuses, perpetuated” since seizing historic Palestinian land not stolen in 1948.

“Palestinians…will be relegated to small, enclosed, isolated enclaves, with no control over their lives as the plan eternalizes the fragmentation of Palestinian space into disconnected slivers of territory in a sea of Israeli control, not unlike the Bantustans of South Africa’s Apartheid regime.”

“With no territorial contiguity, Palestinians will not be able to exercise their right to self-determination and will continue to be completely dependent on Israel’s goodwill (sic) for their daily life, with no political rights and no way to influence their future.”

“They will continue to be at the mercy of Israel’s draconian permit regime and need its consent for any construction or development.”

“(N)ot only does the plan fail to improve their predicament in any way, but, in fact, it leaves them worse off as it perpetuates the situation and gives it recognition.”

It illegitimately legitimizes permanent subjugation under Israel’s repressive boot to be stomped on at its discretion.

A scathing Al Jazeera op-ed expressed an inability to discuss Trump’s scheme “with a straight face,” adding:

It’s an affront to what peace is all about to label it this way. “It is so much worse that a better term for it would be an ‘assault on peace.’ ”

“Everything about (it) is farcical…its author unfit…Kushner a fanatic Zionist supporter of illegal Israeli settlements…”

The scheme “punishes the victims and rewards the aggressors.”

Instead of opposing Israeli apartheid, Trump’s scheme endorses it.

Manipulated and out-of-touch with reality, he fails understand the potentially devastating consequences of his unacceptable sellout.

On Tuesday, Sergey Lavrov and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reserved official comment on Trump’s scheme until after reviewing its text.

Meeting with Palestinian factions in Moscow on Tuesday, Lavrov said Trump’s scheme does not include Palestinian statehood with East Jerusalem its capital, adding:

Russia “support(s) a diplomatic solution based on decisions of the international community” — failing to say it must be according to international law, what’s fundamental in resolving endless conflicts.

Separately, a PLO letter to foreign diplomats said the following:

“The attempts by the Trump (regime) at legitimizing Israeli crimes and violations as well as endorsing Israeli policies and narrative, including by illegally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, defunding UNRWA, legitimizing settlements, cutting all humanitarian and development aid to the Palestinian people, closing the Palestinian mission in Washington as well as the US consulate in Jerusalem and dangerously justifying such policies using a religious narrative, have done nothing but to strengthen extremists in our region, further harming the prospects of security and stability for the Arab world and the rest of the world,” adding:

“The question of Palestine remains an unfulfilled test for the international community in regards to its commitment to international law.”

The letter called for “convening of an international peace conference based on international law and relevant UN resolutions.”

“Participation (in) this conference would include Israel and Palestine as well as all international stakeholders, including Arab countries.”

Similar earlier initiatives failed, another clearly to go the same way, US and Israeli manipulation to assure the outcome and what follows go their way.

The only solution is popular revolution, sustained resistance against illegal occupation. Nothing else can work.

Abbas and other key PA politicians long ago sold their souls to Israel.

Palestinians must go it on their own to have any hope for eventual liberation.

Their choice is either putting their bodies on the line for positive change or remaining subjugated by a brutal US-supported occupier.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.