Trump's 'Deal of the Century' meets Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine

President Trump’s return to the White House on 20 January 2025 will:

·       Ensure the resurrection of Trump’s January 2020 Deal of the Century (Trump’s Proposal) and

·       Enable consideration of a counter-proposal offered by the Saudi-based March 2020 Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution (HKOPS) – authored by Ali Shihabi – an advisor to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) since January 2020.

Trump’s Proposal called for the division of Gaza and the West Bank between:

·       Israel and

·       A newly-created demilitarised state between Israel and Jordan.

PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas panned Trump’s stated intention in January 2018 – before any details were known - and rejected Trump’s Proposal immediately when released on 28 January 2020.

HKOPS challenged Trump’s two-state proposal:

“The recently announced Bantustan-like “deal of the century” and the basically insurmountable power imbalance between the Arabs and Israelis, let alone between the Palestinians and Israelis, argues for a radical rethinking of the approach to solving the Palestine problem.

Israel is a reality firmly implanted on the ground that has to be accepted, however grudgingly, by the region around it.”

No ordinary citizen could make this statement and expect to not be arrested the next day. Yet Shihabi has since 2020 come up with two variations of HKOPS on 8 June 2022 and 19 June 2022 – and still continues to act today as advisor to MBS on Neom – a trillion dollar development the size of Israel emerging from the Saudi Arabian desert.

Shihabi’s close relationship with MBS is explained by a 2018 article headlined “How a smooth Saudi operative charms Washington and defends ‘the indefensible’ ” – following the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul Embassy.

“The global outrage over Khashoggi’s murder has forced many Washington lobbyists and public relations pros to cut ties with the Saudi government. But not Shihabi, a Saudi national who may be the country’s most effective defender in the U.S. capital. Media savvy and politically shrewd, Shihabi has relationships with prominent journalists, Trump administration officials and think tank experts throughout Washington. The Saudi ambassador left Washington earlier this month and reportedly may not return, but it matters less given that many already consider Shihabi, who is close to the Saudi leadership, to be the kingdom’s unofficial envoy.”

HKOPS – contrary to Trump’s Proposal – calls for the merger of Jordan, Gaza and part of the West Bank into one new Hashemite-governed territorial entity to be called “The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine”.

I contacted Shihabi in 2022 and we collaborated to publish an article which detailed these major features of HKOPS:

• It would supersede two previous Saudi peace proposals in 1981 and 2002 calling for Israel to withdraw completely from the West Bank

• The two-state solution – the creation of a separate Palestinian Arab State between Jordan and Israel – promoted unsuccessfully by the United Nations for the previous 29 years – would be consigned to the diplomatic graveyard

• Amman – not Jerusalem – would be the capital of The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine

• The right of return to Israel would be abandoned.

• Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and stateless refugees would get full citizenship in the merged Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine with all the elements of sovereignty applicable to those Territories that belonging to a fully recognized state in the UN entail.

Shihabi has inexplicably refused to communicate with me since then and has blocked my access to his X page.

The United Nations, the media and international think tanks have ignored HKOPS. They have some explaining to do.

The Trump Proposal and HKOPS are destined to miraculously cross paths once again in 2025 – hopefully working together this time to end over 100 years of unresolved conflict between Arabs and Jews.