January 28, 2020

Peace In Our Time

Palestinians show what they think of President Trump's Mideast peace plan.Ashraf Amra/APA Images via ZUMA

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Jared’s Mideast peace plan is finally finished! Let’s see what he came up with after three years of grueling work:

Mr. Trump’s plan would guarantee that Israel would control a unified Jerusalem as its capital and not require it to uproot any of the settlements in the West Bank that have provoked Palestinian outrage and alienated much of the outside world.

….The proposal imagines new Israeli borders that cut far into the West Bank, and, at least in the short term, calls for what Mr. Netanyahu has described as a Palestinian “state-minus,” lacking an army or air force.

Ooh, a “state-minus.” Bibi sure has a way with words. I’m sure the Palestinians will leap to endorse this plan.

Did Jared actually produce any of this plan? It appears that it was created by asking Netanyahu to write a draft and then simply releasing it under the White House seal. Which is the whole point, of course. This wasn’t designed to be a serious peace plan; it was designed to be a 2020 campaign document showing how much Trump loves Israel.

And while we’re on the subject, here’s some related news:

Hours before President Trump was expected to unveil his plan to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suffered a major political setback when prosecutors in his own country proceeded with a three-count indictment against him for alleged bribery, fraud and the coercing of favorable coverage from Israeli media outlets.

Of the three parties to peace talks, one is under indictment, one is being impeached, and the third has boycotted the whole thing. It’s hard to imagine why people aren’t taking this seriously.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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