Trump 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.

Any Saudi citizen or Saudi political analyst making this statement would have been arrested the next day.

Yet Shihabi has come up with two variations of 2020 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.