WarSclerotic

France’s outgoing ambassador to the US, Gérard Araud, said US President Donald Trump is uniquely able to “push” Israel on his upcoming peace plan because he is extremely popular among Israelis and they “trust him.”

In an interview with The Atlantic magazine published on Friday, Araud said the White House plan, engineered by Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, will be “very close to what the Israelis want,” and is 99 percent “doomed to fail.”

“But 1 percent, you never forget the 1 percent. Trump is uniquely able to push the Israelis, because he is so popular in Israel,” he said.

Araud, who served as France’s ambassador to Israel from 2003 to 2006, positioned himself as “very close” to Kushner, whom he described as “extremely smart, but he has no guts.” Araud has served as French ambassador to Washington since 2014 and is retiring.

Kushner, Araud claimed, “doesn’t know the history” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “and in a sense, it’s good — we are not here to say who is right, who is wrong; we are trying to find a way [toward a solution].”

“So in a sense, I like it, but at the same time he is so rational, and he is so pro-Israeli also, that he may neglect the point that if you offer the Palestinians the choice between surrendering and committing suicide, they may decide the latter. Somebody like Kushner doesn’t understand that,” he asserted.

Araud told the magazine that the White House was counting on three factors when it comes to the peace plan. The first is Trump’s popularity in Israel.

“Trump, he said, is more popular than [Benjamin] Netanyahu in Israel, so the Israelis trust him. That’s the first bet, Kushner told me. The second is that the Palestinians may consider it’s their last chance to get limited sovereignty. And the third element is Kushner is going to pour money on the Palestinians. Don’t forget, the Arabs are behind the Americans. The plan is 50 pages, we were told, very precise; we don’t know what is in the plan. But we’ll see,” he said.

Araud added that “the disproportion of power is such between the two sides that the strongest [Israel] may conclude that they have no interest to make concessions.”

Israel is “extremely comfortable” with the status quo, he said, “because they [can] have the cake and eat it. They have the West Bank, but at the same time they don’t have to make the painful decision about the Palestinians, really making them really, totally stateless or making them citizens of Israel.

“They won’t make them citizens of Israel. So they will have to make it official, which is we know the situation, which is an apartheid. There will be officially an apartheid state. They are in fact already,” he claimed.

The details of the Trump plan have been kept under wraps, but rumors of its content have swirled, particularly on social media.

Last week, Kushner said the plan will not be unveiled until June at the earliest. Kushner told some 100 foreign diplomats the plan will be rolled out after the new Israeli government is sworn in and following the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ends June 5.

He urged them to keep an “open mind,” according to a source cited by Reuters.

Although little is known about the long-awaited plan, recent reports in the Washington Post and Guardian suggested it would not include full Palestinian statehood.

That is a likely deal-breaker for Palestinians, who were already not cooperating with Trump’s Middle East team following the US president’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017 and moving of the US embassy there in May 2018.

On Friday, US Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt warned both Israel and the Palestinians against rejecting Trump’s peace plan and rejected the use of the term “two-state solution” in an interview released by Sky News Arabic.

There was no reason to use the term because each side understood it differently, Greenblatt said, according to Channel 12 news.

He said both sides needed to be prepared for direct negotiations as each would have to make concessions, and there would be elements of the deal that each side would be satisfied with, and parts each would dislike.

Greenblatt said both sides would miss an opportunity for peace if they did not accept the deal, but he issued a special warning to the Palestinians, noting they had already spoken out against the plan before seeing it, while suggesting that it could have a significant and positive impact on their future.

In his interview with The Atlantic, Araud described Trump’s governing manner as “brutal, a bit primitive,” but said he is “right” in some issues, such as free trade.

“What he’s doing with China should have been done, maybe in a different way, but should have been done before,” he said.

Araud told the magazine that two particular instances during Trump’s presidency thus far shocked the French: the pullout from the Paris climate agreement and from the Iran nuclear deal.

In both cases, according to his account, the French were under the impression that discussions surrounding the issues were going well.

Araud said that before Trump announced the US pullout from the Iran deal, Paris was “negotiating with the administration on an agreement to complement[it]…, on missiles, terrorism, and Iran’s regional activities.”

Araud said Paris and Washington were very close to an agreement, “people say 90 percent.”

“There was absolutely no crisis in the negotiation. And suddenly overnight, everything was over. It was decided overnight; it was decided by Trump. Nobody was warned, and the day after, nobody was able to tell us what it meant for us,” he went on.

He described the White House as “so dysfunctional,” however, adding there’s “only one person who can commit the United States [to an agreement], and it’s Donald Trump.”

Leaders from around the world voiced support for the Sri Lankan government and nation following a series of deadly bombing attacks throughout the country on Easter Sunday that left over 207 people killed and hundreds wounded.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered aid to the country in a tweet, in which he expressed, “on behalf of all Israelis, deep shock over the murderous rampages against innocent civilians in Sri Lanka.

“Israel is ready to aid the authorities in Sri Lanka at this difficult hour. The entire world must unite in the fight against the scourge of terrorism,” Netanyahu said.

“The attacks in Sri Lanka, including those at prayer celebrating Easter Sunday, are a despicable crime. We are all children of God; an attack on one religion is an attack on us all. Israel sends condolences to the families of the victims and wishes for the recovery of the injured,” President Reuven Rivlin wrote on Twitter.

On Sunday morning, six explosions were triggered nearly simultaneously. Three high-end hotels and one church were targeted in the capital, Colombo, while two additional churches were targeted elsewhere in the country during Easter services.

Local security officials said at least two of those attacks appeared to have been carried out by suicide bombers. Sri Lanka’s defense minister said seven suspects have been arrested.

Sri Lankan Special Task Force (STF) personnel are pictured outside a house during a raid — after a suicide blast had killed police searching the property — in the Orugodawatta area of the capital Colombo on April 21, 2019, following a series of blasts in churches and hotels. (ISHARA S. KODIKARA / AFP)

Several hours later, a seventh attack was carried out in a suburb south of Colombo, killing two people. That was followed minutes later by an eighth blast, carried out by a suicide bomber, in a northern neighborhood of Colombo, which killed three police officers, Sri Lankan officials said.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attacks — the worst act of violence in Sri Lanka since the end of the country’s bloody civil war a decade ago.

US President Donald Trump said his country would assist Sri Lanka following the attack.

“The United States offers heartfelt condolences to the great people of Sri Lanka. We stand ready to help!” Trump wrote in a tweet.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the bombings “horrific” and said his country stood beside his neighbors to the southeast.

“My thoughts are with the bereaved families and prayers with the injured,” Modi said in a statement.

British Prime Minister Theresa May, whose country ruled Sri Lanka until 1948 when it was granted independence, also denounced the attacks on a holy site during religious services.

“The acts of violence against churches and hotels in Sri Lanka are truly appalling, and my deepest sympathies go out to all of those affected at this tragic time. We must stand together to make sure that no one should ever have to practice their faith in fear,” May wrote in a tweet.

At least 35 of foreign nationals were among the more than 200 people killed in the attacks, Sri Lankan police said. A hospital source said Americans, British and Dutch citizens were among the dead.

Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe called the blasts “cowardly” and said the government was working to “contain the situation.”

“I call upon all Sri Lankans during this tragic time to remain united and strong,” he wrote in a tweet.

Sri Lankan security personnel walk past dead bodies covered with blankets amid blast debris at St. Anthony’s Shrine following an explosion in the church in Colombo on April 21, 2019. (ISHARA S. KODIKARA / AFP)

After the second wave of attacks, Sri Lanka’s defense ministry ordered a nighttime curfew across the country, and authorities “temporarily” blocked access to social media websites and applications “in order to prevent incorrect and wrong information being spread,” Udaya R. Seneviratne, secretary to the country’s president said in a statement.

The island nation of Sri Lanka, just off the coast from India, endured a brutal and bloody civil war from 1983 to 2009, when the government declared victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam insurgent group, also known as the Tamil Tigers.

A gunshot was reportedly fired at Israeli troops serving along the Gaza border on Friday, prompting a number of retaliatory strikes against nearby Hamas positions, the Israel Defense Forces said.

No injuries were reported on either side.

The IDF said the soldiers were targeted while at the security fence. According to outlets in the Gaza Strip, the incident occurred east of the Gazan city Deir al-Balah.

A short time later, an Israeli tank and aircraft targeted two Hamas observation posts along the Gaza border, the army said.

“An IDF aircraft and tank attacked two military positions belonging to the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip in response to a shot that was fired a short time ago at troops near the security fence,” the IDF said.

The fire came as troops were gearing up for the weekly protests and riots along the Gaza border that have been held almost every Friday for more than a year.

The exchange also came amid ongoing efforts to implement a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

On Thursday, senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya said Israel had agreed to lift restrictions on importing many “dual-use” goods into Gaza as a part of the understandings with terror groups there.

For the past several years Israel has heavily restricted the entry of products that it labels “dual-use,” meaning that they can be used for both civilian and military purposes. Palestinians in Gaza have long been required to receive special permits to import goods that Israel categorizes as dual-use.

“We extracted from the occupation the lifting of the restrictions and the ban…on 30 percent of these materials,” Hayya told the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV in a long interview late Wednesday.

Hamas senior political leader Khalil al-Hayya during a press conference at the end of two days of closed-door talks attended by representatives of 13 leading political parties held in the Egyptian capital Cairo on November 22, 2017. (AFP/Mohamed El-Shahed)

The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, a Defense Ministry body responsible for liaising with Palestinians, declined to confirm or deny Hayya’s comments.

“We do not respond to foreign reports,” COGAT said in an email.

The Prime Minister’s Office declined to respond to a request for comment.

According to a World Bank report that was issued on Wednesday, there are 118 goods that Israel classifies as dual-use in relation to Gaza and 56 to the West Bank. Those pertaining to Gaza include several chemicals, machinery including drilling equipment, jet skis and many other materials and products.

The report said World Bank estimates found that “easing dual-use restrictions could bring additional 6 percent growth in the West Bank economy and 11% in Gaza by 2025, compared to a scenario with continued restrictions.”

Hayya also warned that if Israel did not abide by the recent ceasefire understandings, Palestinians in Gaza would renew launching incendiary and explosive-laden balloons into the Jewish state, nighttime protests in the border region between the Jewish state and the coastal enclave, and other measures.

Palestinian protesters hold balloons before loading them with flammable material to be flown towards Israel, at the Israel-Gaza border in the central Gaza Strip on June 14, 2018. (AFP/Mahmud Hams)

“[Israel] not abiding….would mean the rough tools would return. Everything and more than the rough tools would return,” he said. “We say that we will not accept the siege staying in place.”

“Rough tools” refer to the launching of incendiary and explosive-laden balloons into Israel and other activities along the border, which have included setting off small explosions, lighting tires on fire and pointing lasers at IDF soldiers.

Since early April, the launching of balloons and nighttime protests have essentially been halted.

Egypt, the United Nations and Qatar recently brokered ceasefire understandings between Israel and Hamas, which Hebrew media reports have said include an end to violence emanating from the Gaza in exchange for the Jewish state easing some of its restrictions on the movement of people and goods into and out of the coastal enclave.

Adam Rasgon contributed to this report.