‘Deal of the Century falls short in delivery of Palestinian rights’

AMMAN — The recently announced US “Deal of the Century” is not a peace plan, but “a deal made by real-estate agents”, said a French scholar on Monday in Amman.

Xavier Guignard, a political scientist who earned his PhD from Pantheon Sorbonne University, was speaking during a lecture titled “Has the Deal of the Century Killed Oslo — or Rescued It?” held at the French Institute of the Near East in Amman.

Guignard, whose research deals with post-conflict mechanisms, authoritarianism and local-national power dynamics, noted that the US deal’s economic vision for Palestine hinges on the promise of a $50 billion investment over the next 10 years, whereas “no one here knows” what form this investment will take. 

Regarding security issues, which are “the vital part” of the deal, he said: “There is no foundation for Palestinian security because the plan underlines that Israel is ‘no threat’ to any country in the region, including Palestine.” 

Under the plan, he stressed, the Palestinian state would be further demilitarised, as it would not be allowed to sign any military or security agreements with other state actors in the region that would go against Israeli interests.

Furthermore, Palestinians would not have their own army, the scholar said, noting that “in other words”, the Israeli forces would take charge of the security of both Israel and the Palestinian state.  

“Palestinians will be prevented from having independent diplomacy as well as access to international legal bodies where they could claim breaches of international law by Israel,” the scholar highlighted, saying that even the Oslo Agreement “did not guarantee full Palestinian sovereignty”.

In the future, the territory will be more fragmented and the Gaza Strip will be a territorial exception treated separately from the West Bank and East Jerusalem as long as Hamas is in control, Guignard predicted.

“The plan doesn’t care what the UN and international law claim,” he said.