‘Apartheid-like conditions’: Former UNGA president slams Trump-Netanyahu ‘deal of the century’ plan for Palestine

Trump’s plan to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will bring anything but peace to the region, former Danish FM and UNGA President Mogens Lykketoft told RT, as it only cements apartheid-like conditions for the Palestinians.

Lykketoft is among a large group of former high-ranking European officials who published an open letter warning about the dangers of the Trump plan and urging the EU to firmly reject any US attempts to somehow implement it.

The plan was pompously unveiled by US President Donald Trump and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu last month, but it was immediately condemned by Palestinians and many countries worldwide.

While critics blasted the project for effectively ceding Jerusalem to Israel, legitimizing occupation, disregarding rights of the Palestinian refugees and so on, its proponents advertised the project as a solution to make ‘peace’ and create an ‘independent’ Palestinian state.

The main issue with the plan, Lykketoft argued, is that it will provide neither.

“It doesn’t deliver at all what it says it will deliver, namely the peace and the two state solution,” he told RT, explaining that the signees of the open letter believe Trump’s plan will only legitimize the existing status quo, while making the conditions for the Palestinians even worse.

It will perpetuate the occupation, the unequal rights. It will change the rest of the Palestinian territory into something like the Bantustans in South Africa during the apartheid period. It is not a recipe for peace, it’s a recipe for the unequal conditions and the lack of peace in the area.

Any peace process for Israel and Palestine must be based on the long-agreed UN guidelines, Lykketoft stressed. Trump’s plan, however, is “an all-out break of these conditions,” as it contradicts a large number of the UN resolutions.

Even if all the other conflicts raging in the Middle East “were solved by some miracle,” Trump’s plan ensures that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will continue for years to come.

“The plan is really the confirmation of the presence of totally unstable and unjust conditions on the ground. And that certainly contributes not to something like peace in the Middle East,” the former official said.

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