WASHINGTON — President Trump said Monday that he would release his long-awaited Middle East peace plan on Tuesday as he briefed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his chief political rival, Benny Gantz, at the White House.
The plan, which includes a map outlining proposed new Israeli borders, provides for Israeli sovereignty over much of the Jordan Valley, a strategic area on the eastern frontier of the West Bank abutting Jordan, a person familiar with the proposal said. It was developed under the oversight of the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and conditions greater Palestinian autonomy on demilitarization and recognition of Israeli as a Jewish state, according to the person.
Palestinian leaders, who no longer speak to Trump officials, are likely to oppose each of those elements, even if they are combined with the economic rewards of $50 billion or more that the Trump administration says it can deliver. That is why many analysts say the plan is relevant mainly for its potential effect on Israel’s March 2 election, which is likely to decide the fate of the embattled Mr. Netanyahu, and as a distraction from the Senate’s impeachment trial of Mr. Trump.
“One can’t ignore the obvious domestic political context to everything that is going to happen in the next couple of days, both here in the United States and in Israel,” said Robert Satloff, the executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “In my view, that drives what is about to happen as much as Middle East peace may drive it.”
Speaking alongside Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Trump said that his proposal, nearly three years in the making, constituted “the closest we’ve ever come” to an agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians and that “we will ultimately have the support of the Palestinians,” a view few regional experts share.
Mr. Netanyahu’s opponent in the election, Mr. Gantz, traveled separately from his rival to Washington to meet with Mr. Trump on Monday, and flew home after the meeting. Mr. Netanyahu remained in Washington and will appear alongside Mr. Trump at the White House on Tuesday for remarks unveiling the plan.
Mr. Gantz’s allies complained that the joint appearance inappropriately elevated Mr. Netanyahu, who has been a close Trump ally, over Mr. Gantz. Perhaps underscoring the point, Mr. Trump did not invite reporters into the meeting he held with Mr. Gantz shortly after Mr. Netanyahu’s visit.
Asked by reporters about hosting the two rivals in highly unusual back-to-back sessions, Mr. Trump professed neutrality but said he was impatient with Israel’s tangled politics, which have produced three national elections in the past year. Ballots in April and September ended inconclusively, with neither Mr. Netanyahu nor Mr. Gantz able to muster a majority government.
“They’re two good competitors. They’re fighting it out,” Mr. Trump said with Mr. Netanyahu at his side. “I’ve been waiting now — this is my third election. We keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting. So, let’s go. What kind of a system is that?”
Speaking in the Oval Office alongside the president on Monday, Mr. Netanyahu showered his host with flattery.
“You’ve been the greatest man Israel had in the White House,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “I think tomorrow you can continue making history.”
Mr. Gantz, too, praised Mr. Trump in remarks to reporters after he left the White House, calling the president “a true and courageous friend of the State of Israel,” and thanking Mr. Trump for his “profound support of Israel’s citizens and for his commitment to their security.” He called Mr. Trump’s peace proposal “a significant and historic milestone.”
An American plan providing for Israeli sovereignty — also known as annexation — over large portions of the Jordan Valley would present both Mr. Netanyahu and his opponent with a quandary.
It could force Mr. Netanyahu, who is fighting for his political future and his freedom — he is facing charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust — out of his risk-averse comfort zone and put his credibility with his supporters, and his legacy, on the line. The unveiling of the plan will occur on the same day his bid for parliamentary immunity from prosecution on the corruption charges gets underway in Israel.
Even if the American plan proposes annexation of the Jordan Valley only as part of a larger compromise with the Palestinians, any approval from Washington for the idea of Israeli control of the area is likely to increase pressure on Mr. Netanyahu from his right-wing partners to move ahead immediately and unilaterally.
“The time for talk is over — full sovereignty now,” Naftali Bennett, Mr. Netanyahu’s defense minister and the leader of a right-wing party Mr. Netanyahu depends on for support, urged last week on Twitter. “Within two weeks we must impose sovereignty over all the settlements.”
Unilateral annexation, however, is not without risk, and something that Israeli leaders, including Mr. Netanyahu, have avoided for decades. For one thing, it could undermine Israel’s strategic peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt. It could also fuel Palestinian unrest or a violent reaction, costing lives on both sides.
For Mr. Gantz, the leader of the centrist Blue and White party, embracing the plan could alienate his more left-leaning supporters and send them back to their more traditional political home, the left-wing Labor-Meretz alliance, tipping the electoral scale away from him.
If Mr. Gantz rejects the plan or gives it a lukewarm reception, that could send his more right-leaning supporters back to Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud or other parties in the right-wing bloc, likewise snatching away the chance of a slim victory.
At a minimum, the peace plan will complicate Mr. Gantz’s efforts to focus Israeli voters’ attention on the cases against Mr. Netanyahu, which he referred to in comments after the meeting. “No one has the right to lead an entire country, at such an intricate diplomatic and security timing, when all of his interests and thoughts are devoted to his own interests,” he said.
“Netanyahu,” he added, “cannot both run a country and run a trial.”
Mr. Gantz also attempted to carve out his own position on the peace plan, welcoming it while distinguishing himself from Mr. Netanyahu by indicating that he prefers not to move unilaterally, but in coordination with Israel’s peace partners.
“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,” he said.
As for the weak and ailing Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, acceptance of the plan is impossible since it does not meet the most minimal of Palestinian demands. But refusal leaves his people divided between the West Bank and Gaza, with no state and no road map for the future.
“It is nothing but a plan to liquidate the Palestinian cause,” Muhammad Shtayyeh, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, said at a cabinet meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday.
A senior Palestinian official said on Monday that Mr. Abbas had recently received an offer, made through a third party, to speak with Mr. Trump, but declined to do so. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Trump sounded energized on Monday by the scale of the challenge before him.
“I think it’s a fantastic thing if we can pull it off,” he said. “They say it’s probably the most difficult deal anywhere and of any kind to make. In the business world, when I was back in the business world, when a deal was tough, people would jokingly refer to it as, ‘This is tougher than Israel and the Palestinians getting together.’”
Mr. Trump also asserted of the plan: “Many of the Arab nations have agreed to it. They like it. They think it’s great.” No Arab leader has publicly embraced the as-yet-unreleased plan. But Mike Evans, an evangelical leader and Trump ally who has met with several senior Arab officials, said that “even though many won’t say it publicly, quietly they are on board.”
Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of the liberal advocacy group J Street, said it was unlikely that the plan would win strong Arab support, particularly from Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
“We don’t expect what we’re going to hear tomorrow to be an actual plan for peace,” said Mr. Ben-Ami, who supports greater Palestinian rights. “This is really an effort to shift longstanding U.S. policy into alignment with the hardest-right positions that Israel has ever taken on these issues.”
“It’s not an effort to resolve this conflict,” he added. “It is an effort to redefine what is the baseline of U.S. policy.”
Michael Crowley reported from Washington, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. David M. Halbfinger contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Mohammed Najib from Ramallah, West Bank.
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