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Anshel Pfeffer

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Anshel Pfeffer,

Anshel Pfeffer

Analysis

White House time warp over Palestine is an attempt to roll back Oslo deal

The Trump administration is reviving ideas to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that were last in vogue in the 1980s, Anshel Pfeffer writes

September 13, 2018 15:27
The Palestinian flag flies outside its offices in Washington, which are to be closed
2 min read

A feeling has emerged in recent days that the Trump administration has taken to reenacting the battles of thirty years ago in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Its announcement on Monday that it was closing down the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) office in Washington was an echo of a debate going back to the days of the Carter and Reagan administrations over whether the US should be talking to the PLO at all.

And if it should not, the debate went, should it engage with the Palestinian national cause at all?

The feeling of a being in a time-warp was compounded by the revelation that President Donald Trump’s representatives had proposed to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that, instead of a Palestinian state, he explore the idea of a federation with the Kingdom of Jordan. That idea was last in vogue in the mid-1980s.

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