Israel & Jordan need to negotiate on Trump 2020 Peace Plan

It is regrettable that Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz and Jordan's King Abdullah did not discuss the possibility of Jordan-Israel negotiations on former US President Donald Trump's 2020 Peace Plan for allocating sovereignty in Judea/Samaria (West Bank), Gaza and parts of Israel (Trump's Plan) - when they met in Amman on 5 January.

Gantz enthusiastically supported Trump's Plan (see image below) following its release on 28 January 2020:

The Trump administration's peace plan is a significant and historic milestone indeed. Immediately after the elections, I will work toward implementing it from within a stable, functioning Israeli government, in tandem with the other countries in our region.

Israel now has a stable functioning Government – so Gantz's failure to raise Trump's Plan with Abdullah when sitting face to face with the King runs counter to Israel's national interest.

This is especially so given Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's outright rejection of Trump's Plan – reportedly telling an Arab League foreign ministers meeting on 1 February 2020:

"They told me Trump wants to send me the deal of the century to read, I said I would not.

"Trump asked that I speak to him over the phone, so I said 'no', and that he wants to send me a letter, so I refused to receive it."

Holding up a map that shows the gradual geographic reduction of Palestine through four stages from pre-1948 to Trump's Middle East plan, Abbas said: "I challenge any of you, if you can even see us on the map. If you ask a child in first grade to draw Trump's map he will never know how to."

"This is a disgrace,"

The map Abbas brandished (pictured below) was a phony map of "Historic Palestine" – dating from 1947 - not 1920.

· Article 2 of the PLO Charter recognizes that Palestine between 1920 and 1946 included what is today called Jordan - 78% of the territory of Palestine under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine: