Trump unveils Mideast plan after Netanyahu indicted

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected the plan announced by the White House on Tuesday.

"I want to say to Trump and Netanyahu -- Jerusalem is not for sale. All our rights are not for sale or for compromise. Your deal is a conspiracy and it will not work," Abbas said in a news conference in Ramallah in the West Bank.

He added that the Palestinian people will reject the proposal and "will put it in the bins of history."

"We shall not kneel and will not surrender," Abbas said, branding the plan “the slap of the century,” alluding to Trump's billing of the plan as "the deal of the century."

“We say again – no, no, no to the deal of the century.”

Jordan has already made it clear it does not endorse the plan announced by the White House and Israel.

The country's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi responded to Trump's announcement by saying that Jordan supports the creation “of an independent Palestinian state on June 4, 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital”, the formula typically used in previous international negotiations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He also made the distinction between East Jerusalem and the Trump administration's reference to "eastern Jerusalem," seen as a reference to Abu Dis, an area in the West Bank and outside the boundaries of Jerusalem.

Safadi stressed that “the Palestinian issue is the foremost Arab issue” and that Jordan will coordinate with other countries in the region on future developments and to develop an Arab consensus.

Safadi warned against the “dangerous consequences of unilateral Israeli actions,” including annexation of Palestinian land, the building and expansion of settlements and any encroachment on Muslim holy sites “that aim at imposing new realities on the ground.” 

US President Donald Trump has tweeted a map that appears to illustrate his vision for how the Middle East should be divided in the future.

The US Embassy in Jerusalem issued a security alert on Tuesday related to “widespread calls for demonstrations in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza” and imposed travel restriction on US personnel and their families.

Trump said his plan will boost the Palestinian economy, creating jobs and attracting investment.

"Our vision will deliver massive commercial investment of $50 billion into the new Palestinian State," he said.

Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian envoy to the United Kingdom, described the Trump administration's proposals as "a political circus" and a "scam."

"President Trump ... just killed the prospects of a negotiated two state solution," he told CNN's Becky Anderson.

He rejected the plan, saying "the Israeli Prime Minister had already pocketed Jerusalem, all the settlements, the Jordan Valley, which is more than third of the occupied West Bank."

Zomlot said that the Palestinians have their own vision on how to achieve peace.

"The way forward is very well known. Israel must end its occupation that was begun in 1967. It's simple," he said.

In his remarks at the White House, Netanyahu thanked Trump for, in his words, “recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over areas in Judea and Samaria that are vital to our security and out heritage … all Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria, large and small alike.”

These are “places recognized by the US as a permanent part of the Jewish state.”

He also said Trump had recognized that Israel must have sovereignty in the Jordan Valley.

He said he agreed to negotiate peace with the Palestinians on the basis of Trump’s plan. He said if Palestinians genuinely take the path and make peace with the Jewish state, then Israel will be there.

As Trump unveiled his proposals with Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday, the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, was thousands of miles away, having cut off diplomatic contact with the US more than two years earlier after Trump broke with longstanding American policy and recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Before seeing the details of the Trump administration’s proposals, Palestinian officials had rejected the plan out of hand -- saying that any deal that did not label Israel as an "occupying force" would be the "fraud of the century."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken the stage, praising Trump for his plan and his support for Israel.

"Mr. President, because of this historic recognition and because I believe your peace plan strikes the right balance where other plans have failed, I have agreed to negotiate peace with the Palestinians on the basis of your peace plan," he said.

He went on with more praise for Trump: