The resolution could be put to a vote on Feb. 11 when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to address the Security Council and deliver his government's objections to the US proposal. If a vote is held, the resolution is virtually certain to be vetoed by the United States.

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The US plan, unveiled by President Donald Trump on Jan. 28, envisions a demilitarized Palestinian state that turns over key parts of Judea and Samaria to Israel.

The Palestinians seek all of Judea and Samaria for an independent state with east Jerusalem as its capital, and the removal of many of the more than 700,000 Israeli settlers from these areas.

But under terms of the American plan, all Israeli settlers would remain in place, and Israel would retain sovereignty over all of its settlements as well as the strategic Jordan Valley.

Kushner is expected to present the plan to Security Council members at a private lunch Thursday hosted by the US Mission to the United Nations.

Dismissing the plan as "nonsense," Abbas declared: "We say 1,000 no's to the 'Deal of the Century,'" using a nickname for Trump's proposal.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who stood beside Trump when the plan was announced, called it a "historic breakthrough" equal in significance to the country's declaration of independence in 1948. He said it provided a green light for annexation of large parts of Judea and Samaria.

The proposed resolution, drafted by Indonesia and Tunisia, condemns recent Israeli statements calling for annexation "of areas of the occupied Palestinian territory" and stresses "the illegality" of any annexation.

It also reaffirms that all Israeli settlements and other measures "aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including east Jerusalem, are illegal and imperil the viability of a two-state solution."

The draft emphasizes the need to preserve "the territorial integrity, contiguity and unity of the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem."

It reiterates the call to achieve lasting peace "without delay" based on UN resolutions dating back to 1967. It would also give the Security Council's "unwavering support" to a two-state solution, with Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace based on pre-1967 borders.

The proposed resolution calls on all 193 UN member nations to comply with all relevant Security Council resolutions – and "not to render aid or assistance to illegal settlement activities" or recognize any actions or measures that might imply Israeli sovereignty over disputed Palestinian territories.

It would also express the council's determination "to examine practical ways and means to secure the full implementation of its relevant resolutions, including enforcement measures under Chapter 7 of the [UN] Charter."

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"We appreciate the efforts of [US] President [Donald] Trump and his administration to work in consultation with the leaders of the two major Israeli political parties to set forth ideas to resolve the conflict in a way that recognizes our ally's critical security needs," said the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in a statement. "Indeed, both Israeli political leaders view this framework as the basis to restart negotiations with the Palestinians."

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The AIPAC statement continued: "We have long believed that direct Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy is essential to create a durable peace and lasting two-state agreement that effectively addresses the concerns of both sides."

At the same time, AIPAC bemoaned that "the Palestinian leadership has continually refused direct talks with Israel for the last several years."

"It is now essential that Palestinians forego the path of violence, boycotts and the criminalization of differences at international forums and return to peace talks with Israel," added the pro-Israel lobby. "We were encouraged to see that the ambassadors from Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates attended the announcement, and we call on the Arab states to play a constructive role in urging the Palestinians to resume negotiations with Israelis."

AIPAC called for "Palestinians to rejoin Israelis at the negotiating table," adding that "a lasting, genuine peace will inevitably require agreement between the parties themselves and tough compromises from both sides."

'A great moment of opportunity for the region'

The Republican Jewish Coalition also approved of the proposal.

The organization's national chairman, former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), said in a statement that it creates a "realistic path" for the Palestinians to have a state while not compromising on "the requirements that the Palestinians reject terrorism, stop inciting violence, stop their indecent 'pay for slay' program that pays terrorists for their crimes, and end corruption and human-rights abuses."

Coleman continued to remark that the plan "offers challenging steps to both parties, as well as the prospect of great achievements. If this plan can be fully implemented, it will change the face of the Middle East for centuries to come."

Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said Tuesday was a "historic day," and he was encouraged by the proceedings.

"We saw the US-Israel relationship in its full expression – a great moment of opportunity for Palestinians and Israelis, as well as the region," he told Jewish News Syndicate. "Hopefully, the Arab states will support this initiative, and it will be backed by European and other countries that want to see stability and peace in the Middle East. We look forward to meaningful negotiations, and in the interim, the beginning of implementation."

B'nai B'rith International, the Endowment for Middle East Truth and the American Jewish Congress also expressed optimism for the initiative.

"This proposal provides a pathway to achieve a lasting peaceful resolution of this conflict that is well-grounded in a reality that includes Israel's vital security needs," said B'nai B'rith International CEO Daniel Mariaschin. "It should be clear to the Palestinians that this plan will not allow them to run from recognizing and accepting Israel as a Jewish state, a prerequisite for any serious negotiation that might ensue."

EMET founder and president Sarah Stern told JNS, "I really do believe that this is a good plan," citing that it gives Israel control over the Jordan Valley and other land crucial for its border security, while giving the Palestinians "billions of dollars people want to invest in their economy to give hope to their children for a better future."

American Jewish Congress president Jack Rosen said in a statement that the president, as well as his senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, deserves credit for constructing a plan that holds the best interests of Israelis and Palestinians in mind. "What the Palestinian people need most is the chance for economic growth, opportunity and self-sufficiency, and the economic component of the peace plan will facilitate investment, trade and cooperation," he said. "An important part of this will be cooperation with neighboring Arab states, and some of them are already on board."

 'He's ignored one side'

NORPAC national president Ben Chouake told JNS that while the plan is "fair and generous," it won't be accepted by Palestinian leadership.

"Unfortunately, the history of Arab leadership making peace with Israel turns out to be short-lived. King Abdullah I Bin Al Hussein of Jordan, Anwar Sadat of Egypt, King Faisal of Iraq all of whom tried to have peace with Israel were assassinated," he said. "So this is a high bar to overcome especially for [Palestinian Authority] President [Mahmoud] Abbas, who is years overstaying his electoral mandate and has little influence over that mandate."

NORPAC is a bipartisan, multi-candidate political action committee working to strengthen United States support for Israel.

Christians United for Israel founder and Chairman John Hagee said in a statement that "President Trump has shown time and again that he is the most pro-Israel president in US history. This plan reflects that tradition and is the best peace proposal any American administration has ever put forth. The president's vision ensures Israel's defensible borders, a united Jerusalem, sovereignty over biblical holy sites and provides an opportunity for the Palestinians to choose peace."

Meanwhile, J Street and the Jewish Democratic Council of America criticized the proposal, exhibiting skepticism from the get-go.

"Trump claims his plan is 'win-win for both sides,' but he's ignored one side. This is a green light for Israeli annexation of the West Bank, an intentional undermining of a viable two-state solution & another example of Trump using Israel to further his domestic political agenda," tweeted JDCA executive director Halie Soifer.

Trump claims his plan is "win-win for both sides" but he's ignored one side. This is a green light for Israeli annexation of the West Bank, an intentional undermining of a viable two-state solution & another example of Trump using Israel to further his domestic political agenda.

— Halie Soifer (@HalieSoifer) January 28, 2020

J Street did not hold back in its denunciation, writing: "It is absolutely clear that the 'plan' released today by the Trump administration stands zero chance of serving as the basis for renewed diplomacy to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead, it is the logical culmination of repeated bad-faith steps this administration has taken to validate the agenda of the Israeli right, prevent the achievement of a viable, negotiated two-state solution and ensure that Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian territory in the West Bank becomes permanent.

"The timing of this announcement, coinciding with the formal indictment of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the impeachment trial of President Trump, only underscores that it is a cynical political maneuver entirely lacking in diplomatic credibility. Coming in the midst of an Israeli election campaign, this is an attempt to hand the prime minister a political gift and a distraction from the very serious charges he is facing," J Street said.

StandWithUs offered a neutral, yet hopeful, assessment.

"As the US administration presents a new peace plan, we know that it is ultimately up to Israeli and Palestinian leaders to resolve their conflict through direct negotiations," said SWU co-founder and CEO Roz Rothstein in a statement. "We firmly respect the right of Israelis to decide what they need in any peace agreement and urge Palestinian leaders to finally engage in good faith. We hope this will be a step towards a better future for both peoples."

'A false basis that will fail'

Mideast experts also expressed mixed reactions.

"My first impression is that this plan, while in specifics far more friendly to Israel than prior ones, is still based on hopes for the Palestinians," Middle East Forum president Daniel Pipes told JNS. "This I believe to be a false basis that will fail. Only when the Palestinians give up can peace be achieved."

Israel Policy Forum policy director Michael Koplow lamented the proposal. "What Trump has destroyed is not Israeli-Palestinian peace or a two-state outcome; it is the long-held idea by many, including me, that we know what the contours of a deal will look like and only need to wait for the right leadership on both sides to have it realized," he wrote in The Forward.

"Nobody should be any under illusions that the Trump vision presented today is going to lead to a deal," he continued. "The Palestinians are hunkered down so deep in their bunker that President Mahmoud Abbas refused to take Trump's call yesterday, and the prospect of them coming to the table is closer to non-existent than it has ever been."

"Even on the Israeli side, with a proposal that is literally the most generous that Netanyahu or any Israeli prime minister could hope for, there is not a clear path forward," Koplow wrote.

Ilan Goldenberg, who served as the chief of staff to the Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations at the US Department of State under the Obama administration, tweeted that the plan "might have sounded nice but it's all about the details and many of the ideas are absolute non-starters" and that it "is just deeply condescending to Palestinians and uses insensitive language all over the place. It reads as it was written by a bunch of Americans who never talked to a Palestinian about its content, which is exactly what happened."

Aaron David Miller, who advised on Mideast issues at the US State Department for 25 years and is currently a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, dismissively tweeted: "This peace plan is like so many other Trumpian ventures. He comes up with a solution to a problem we didn't have and in process makes the original problem so much worse."

This peace plan is like so many other Trumpian ventures. He comes up with a solution to a problem we didn't have and in process makes the original problem so much worse.

— Aaron David Miller (@aarondmiller2) January 28, 2020

Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, tweeted: "I see now that the Israeli right endorses the plan. They back [Netanyahu]. They appear to understand that there is no way that a [Palestinian] state comes to pass under these circumstances. If true, the plan will be seen by critics as cover for [Netanyahu] and company. Will be up to Trump to make peace."

I see now that the Israeli right endorses the plan. They back Bibi. They appear to understand that there is no way that a Pal state comes to pass under these circumstances. If true, the plan will be seen by critics as cover for Bibi and company. Will be up to Trump to make peace

— Jonathan Schanzer (@JSchanzer) January 28, 2020

Eugene Kontorovich, a professor at George Mason Antonin Scalia Law School who advised the Trump administration on the initiative, said in a statement: "This plan corrects numerous fundamental failures of prior failed plans. This plan says that if the Palestinians claim they want a peaceful state, they have to meet minimum conditions, like disarming Hamas and ending pay for slay.

"The reaction of critics that such basic criteria are unrealistic shows that the idea of a peaceful state has never been the real goal," he continued. "Another difference is that in prior plans, whenever the Palestinians said 'no,' they simply locked the rejected offer as a floor for the future. The Trump plan turns that around: If the Palestinians don't come to the table, statehood gets taken off the table."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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If the reports are accurate, this is a call for a third intifada. The man, who for years sought to separate himself from Yasser Arafat while telling everyone that the path of violence and terror is not his path, because it is ineffective and damaging to the Palestinian people, has changed his tune and is now following his predecessor's footsteps.

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And if the leak is correct that in the same meeting on Monday Abbas also castigated the US president in an expletive-laden tirade, then we can also draw another direct line linking him to Arafat, who 25 years ago in Cairo refused to sign a border agreement with Israel. Then, however, it was former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who lost his patience, calling Arafat a "dog, son of a dog," and forced him to sign the dotted line.

Abbas' claim on Monday, whereby if he accepts Trump's plan he will go down in Palestinian history as a "traitor," could have been taken seriously if he had tried at the very least to talk to the White House about the details of the plan. It's even possible he could have changed some of its clauses.

But he rejected the plan before seeing it, just as he rejected former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's far more generous offer. The outright rejection of the entire plan puts him on the same footing as his predecessor, Arafat, as a peace obstructionist who would rather go down in history as refusing to give an inch over ending the bloody conflict through a fair compromise.

The call emanating from Ramallah on Monday was for Arab leaders to take action, boycott Israel and reject any form of normalization with it.

The Arab world, however, particularly the moderate Sunni bloc, is preoccupied with its own issues. It is tired of the ongoing conflict and the Palestinians' stubborn rejectionism.

Abbas has erred several times throughout his tenure and will err far more egregiously if he now starts playing with fire. Who knows better than anyone – as he has argued so persuasively in the past – that choosing the path of terror won't get the Palestinians anywhere.

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According to a member of Fatah's Central Committee, Abbas said Trump was "a dog, son of a dog … he won't threaten me. This is a sh*t person, a bastard who wants to force a plan on us that we don't want. His government is a government of dogs."

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Abbas emphasized that it wouldn't be possible to force anything on the Palestinians that they don't want and that whoever dares surrender to the Americans' pressure would be considered a traitor.

"The situation won't remain as it was. I won't be a traitor. Any of the Palestinian organizations who want to be with us, we will welcome them, and those who don't – we will tell them their place isn't here," Abbas reportedly said at the meeting.

Al Mayadeen also reported that Abbas told the Egyptians that the PA's security services will allow the Palestinian public to express its objections to the Trump plan and won't prevent protesters from clashing with IDF soldiers.

PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said in Ramallah on Monday that the "deal of the century and the timing of its presentation are meant to serve Israeli and American interests only."

The PA has also reportedly urged Arab ambassadors in the US not to attend the unveiling of the peace plan on Tuesday. The officials PA news agency Wafa claimed envoys had been invited to the event, but Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh called on them to refuse, saying the Palestinians consider it "a conspiracy aimed at undermining the rights of the Palestinian people and thwarting the establishment of the State of Palestine."

Saeb Erekat, the PA's chief negotiator, told CNN on Monday that Abbas had refused a phone call with Trump to discuss the peace plan.

Elias Zananiri, the vice-chairman of the PLO Committee for Interaction with the Israeli Society, told Arab media outlets that "Trump's deal of the century is nothing less than a declaration of war on the Palestinian people."

A senior PA security official, meanwhile, speaking to Israel Hayom, warned that Hamas could attempt to exploit a possible wave of violent protests in Judea and Samaria against the Trump plan to overthrow the PA and Abbas.

According to the senior Palestinian official, the PA's intelligence apparatus has concrete reason to believe that Israel will not allow a coup in Judea and Samaria, and that in such a scenario the IDF would invade PA-controlled territories to prevent it.

The official added that in contrast to the political echelon in Ramallah, the PA's security echelon does not support outright rejection of the Trump plan. The widely held view among senior officials within the PA's security and intelligence services is that if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump both win another term in office, the Palestinians will not receive a better plan than the deal of the century and that the Palestinians should examine its details, and demand that amendments be made so that the Palestinian leadership will agree to accept it.

Another senior Palestinian security official told Israel Hayom that senior Israeli defense officials have passed on messages to their counterparts in the PA asking them to keep the flames low on the Palestinian street. According to the official, in the wake of these Israeli messages, together with the PA leadership's decision to halt protest rallies until the Trump plan is actually implemented on the ground, it had been decided, for now, to postpone "day of rage" events.

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The American officials lambasted the letter, saying: "They are squandering the moment, and don't understand the immense advantages this plan entails in terms of their worldview. The [Israeli] right will not get anything better than this."

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The official also addressed claims by some on the Right that the Trump plan will lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state. "If you look at the dictionary, you'll understand this isn't the definition of a state. That is not what the plan allows, and so the resistance from the Right and the rabbis is a mistake."

As stated, senior religious-Zionist rabbis, among them Rabbi Haim Drukman, Rabbi Dov Lior, Rabbi Elyakim Levanon and Rabbi Eliyahu Zini, together with 50 other community rabbis, sent a forceful letter to Netanyahu and called on him to be wary of the dangers they say are inherent to Trump's peace plan.

The rabbis penned the letter after Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan announced he would depart for Washington to attend a series of emergency meetings with senior Republican officials and Evangelical leaders, who comprise the US president's voter base, to present the settlement enterprise's red lines and to prevent recognition of a Palestinian state and the isolation of certain settlements within the plan's framework.

The letter was the brainchild of Dagan and Rabbi Amichai Eliyahu, the head of the Association of Communal Rabbis. The letter said the rabbis "recognize this historic moment for the Jewish people, and sincerely support you [Netanyahu] in applying sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, but we understand that the plan comes with danger – the establishment of a terror state."

The rabbis presented their red lines in relation to the plan: "No to the creation of a 'Palestinian' state, partitioning the main settlement blocs, abandoning the settlements as an enclave inside a terror state, as happened with the community of Netzarim [in Gaza], and no to the transfer of Areas C to B, and no to additional [territorial] withdrawals."

Rabbi Eliyahu said about the letter: "We are happy over the significant progress on the matter of applying sovereignty. In no way can [this development] facilitate the establishment of a Palestinian state in the holy Land of Israel."

Dagan said, "On behalf of all the residents of Samaria I am thankful to our rabbis, who stand at the head of the camp and lead the people of Israel and the State of Israel. The rabbis' sentiment is a moral and principled one. There are red lines that the Israeli public will not cross."

According to Dagan, "The settlement enterprise won't sit idly by while its future is being played with. Alongside the joy over the great achievement of applying sovereignty to the communities in Judea and Samaria, we cannot ignore the initiative to surrender 70% of the area of Judea and Samaria."

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According to the official, Israel has made it clear to Washington that its red lines, among other things, include the "removal of even one Jewish community or person" from Judea and Samaria.

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Additionally, in any future peace deal, Israel will demand full security control over Judea and Samaria and seek to preserve a united Jerusalem.

The senior official added that Israel also won‎'t accept the "return of even a single Palestinian refugee to its territory."

"It's highly probable" that the Trump administration's peace plan will be unveiled in the coming weeks or months, the official estimated, but noted that the decision was US President Donald Trump's alone.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas on Tuesday dismissed Israeli media reports over an Israeli plan to encourage Palestinian emigration from Gaza and Judea and Samaria.

Arab and Palestinian media outlets, however, paid considerable attention to the story, which was based on quotes from a senior Israeli official.

The official confirmed that the emigration plan was already in motion and that some 35,000 Palestinians had relocated abroad from Gaza and Judea and Samaria.

"That's a pretty high number," the senior official told reporters, adding that Israel is also willing to pay for flights and to use Nevatim airport in southern Israel to expedite the emigration.

The senior official noted that the National Security Council has been dealing with the effort for the last year, and that the government was currently in talks with countries in the Middle East and Europe to absorb the potential émigrés, but so far no country has agreed.

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