Meeting with Ambassador Friedman and a congressional presentation led to "countless talks" between Dr. Dore Gold and members of the White House peace team • In an interview with Israel this week, he tells how the secret channel worked and clarifies: "Partial sovereignty can be applied"

• "Don't believe there will be statements in the future that would contradict Trump's vision of peace." Dory Gold

  Photo:

  Noam Rivkin Fenton

"I thank Dorrie (Gold) and his team for three years of excellent collaboration and consultation. We talked countless times about these issues, and he taught me a lot." In those words, this week, perhaps unintentionally, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman revealed the Israeli who most likely influenced the American peace plan.

In his speech at the Jerusalem Center for Public and State, Friedman revealed how the Trump Peace Plan was actually born, what were the considerations and principles that guided its writers, and what the lessons of the past were before them.

Contrary to the simplistic descriptions of "Friedman is the settler's ambassador," his briefings show that the Trump administration does not work for either party. Indeed, he supports Israel as no American government has supported it, but the US president receives no dictates from anyone.

Even Ambassador Friedman, who as a private person is indeed a big supporter of the settlement in Judea and Samaria, knew from the first moment to distinguish between his worldview and what he needed from the White House. "Whether they were justified or not, the settlements are an existing fact" Introducing the Trump plan, which means he did not see his job as a leap to expand settlement, but rather a given situation that must now be dealt with in a realistic way.

Videos from Gush Katif

The realistic, realistic element, as Friedman detailed in his speech on Sunday, is a founding principle in the Trump program. "We approached writing the plan humbly," said Friedman. "After all, we do not foresee the future and Israel's security is by far the most important thing for Israel and US national security." As a result, unlike all previous peace plans, the Americans agreed that Israel would be the only one responsible for security. - “Without international forces whose failure has been proven more than once. This allowed us to move forward with the prime minister and his people on the other issues. "

Another principle that was taken as a lesson from the past is that "evacuating people from their homes is not humane, is of no avail and puts tremendous pressure on Israeli society. Gush Katif was a place from which it could be thought that evacuating 8,000 would be easy. Friedman told how he saw "videos of soldiers crying with civilians; it required tremendous force and put pressure on the people of Israel. Why would we want to go through this process again, and why the numbers are much larger than in Gaza - 10,000 to 100,000 people will be evacuated? ".
Even with regard to border design, the American team tried to be realistic. Contrary to popular belief, the starting point of the current administration was the same as its predecessors, and that Israel should withdraw from all territory.

Kushner and Greenblatt // Photo: GettyImages

According to Friedman, Israel required significant concessions. "In the West Bank and Gaza, several millions of people do not want Israeli rule, and their situation is unfavorable. People do not understand how much courage it takes (from the Israeli side) to present a map that has a Palestinian state, which doubles the territory of Gaza, which doubles the Palestinian territory in the West Bank, which connects in the tunnel. Or the Gaza-West Bank bridge, which includes full freedom of movement (for Palestinians) in all directions. Many Israelis did not like this map, and rightly so. "

Alternatively, according to the ambassador, American demands from the Palestinians to stop incitement, stop payments to terrorists, safeguard human rights, freedom of worship and press freedom - are logical requirements designed to ensure the future and stability of a future Palestinian state. "Only so are companies surviving, only so is a good neighbor," he said.

A surprising invitation to the White House

However, including some of these and other conclusions, the American team did not come alone. Even Trump's "good Jews," which are a central avenue in his administration, still live mostly in New York, and do not breathe the complicated realities of the Middle East. So, at a very early stage, the president's peace team realized that he had to use local experts.

One of them, as Friedman revealed, was Dr. Dory Gold. Among his many roles, Gould served as Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, as Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry, as Netanyahu's close advisor and for many years, including today, as president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and State.

Contrary to popular belief in the Israeli security and academic establishment, the Jerusalem Center has for many years emphasized the importance of preserving the borders of Israel's defense in any future arrangement. A second flag, which Gold has become a global expert on, is Jerusalem. His book, "The Campaign on Jerusalem," which describes the Arab attempt to deny the Jewish people's connection to its capital, was translated into many languages, including Chinese, became a bestseller in the United States, and distributed among all members of Congress.

Gold made the battle for Jerusalem his life's battle. He goes from city to city and country to country, explaining the real implications of the distribution of capital, not only on Israel but also, for example, on Christian sites. A few years ago, he added a presentation to the book with which he wandered, through which a close relationship was established with Trump's peace team.

Even before Trump's election to US President, Gold - then Secretary of State - made an initial contact with Friedman, who held the "Israeli portfolio" in his election campaign. The two were set for a secret meeting in which Gold presented the two flagship documents, "Borderers of Defense" and "The Battle of Jerusalem." After Trump’s election and the work of the White House peace team, the relationship between the two grew tighter.
Only when little in the vicinity of Gold did they know of the forthcoming counseling he provided to the Americans. "He had a very significant, irreplaceable role in this process," Friedman added, praising his colleague this week.

In March 2018, Gold appeared in the US Congress, delivering a 50-year reunion on Jerusalem. The event sparked interest and followed a surprising invitation to the White House. At the request of Trump program architects, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, Gold returned for them the same day on the lecture. The meeting, which lasted an hour and a half, gave rise to a secret and continuous relationship between the parties until the day the program was published.

As a former Prime Minister's adviser, Gold would periodically update Netanyahu on the intense content of the talks, and received a green light from him for further progress. "Most meetings took place in Israel, many other meetings in the White House," Gold says.

Gold also linked a former senior officer with the Americans, which helped them in various aspects. He refuses to say who the man is, and even nowadays it is only a matter of revealing only a fraction of the conversations he has had with the Americans over the past three years.

Still, he reveals quite a bit. As an expert on Wahhabiism - the Saudi Islamist stream - Gold explained to Americans that Wahhabiism's father wrote that the prominence of Jerusalem by Muslims is "an imitation of Judaism." Because in the eyes of the Americans, the Saudis are bridesmaids of the century plan no less than the Palestinians, one can presume that the information made it easier for them.

Furthermore, Gold finds that during the discussions on the plan's outline, it was possible to hand over the Mount of Olives to Palestinian sovereignty. "I told them that the Mount of Olives is not only an ancient Jewish cemetery, but also a Christian center of historical importance. Giving up the place could provoke opposition from evangelical Christians, who are an important political base for President Trump."

Create an irreversible state

When you dive into the program content, it is not complicated to notice that the perceptions presented by Gold and his institute researchers have permeated the paper. At the heart of the program is a forgotten document, which is titled "Israel's map of interests." Unlike the legacy of Barak and Olmert, which offered a near-total retreat to the Green Line, the "map of interests" outlined in the IDF's Planning Division in the 1990s offers Palestinians much smaller territory. Just as the late Yitzhak Rabin believes, according to this map, the expanded Jordan Valley becomes To Israeli, and so are the other essential places for Israel in Judea and Samaria.

"It was important for me to show them my approach, that security areas require sovereignty," Gold explains. Kushner and his people, as the bottom line shows, adopted this principle to the end. Unlike past proposals, all localities and security areas will be fully sovereign of Israel.

"We introduced to Americans the" I believe "of most Israelis. For example, they read Nadav Shragai's book Jerusalem, the Illusion of Partition (proper disclosure: Shragai is a member of the" Israel Today "system), about the dangers posed by the city's divide. Not that they wanted to divide Jerusalem, but the book provided them with the ammunition and reason why it was problematic. I felt like a librarian whose job was to find Americans the material to make the decisions. But I also felt I played an important role and my responsibility to my people and my country. "

Although he was able to influence the content of the American program, and although its principles are not quite in line with his worldview, Gold emphasizes that not all of Israel's wishes were met. He would have preferred to give the Palestinians a more limited area, and not at all enthusiastic about the establishment of Palestinian beer in East Jerusalem. "There are prices in this plan, but we must measure the benefit against the price. Could anyone imagine a few years ago that a US government would approve Israeli sovereignty in the Jordan Valley? I would have preferred to have it all for free, but must be realistic."

All previous US government peace plans have been shelved. Sure the Trump program will be implemented?
"I am 100 percent sure the plan will be implemented because the government's founding principle is up to promises, and Trump has proven it more than once. Israelis are hard to break free from the legacy - from James Baker to John Kerry. But this time, I believe the administration can be trusted. There will be statements that contradict what is said in the vision of peace. "

Israel will apply sovereignty but a new US government, in a year or five years, may revoke its recognition. What then?
"This is always a possibility, but I hope the situation is irreversible. A new reality will be created on the ground that will be difficult to shake off. Eisenhower did not cancel Truman's recognition of the State of Israel."

Ambassador Friedman said there would be no sovereignty measures before the election, as would Jared Kushner. Do you think the matter is closed and signed, or will Israel still be able to do something?
"I think a partial start can be made before the election. The Americans will not deny it if we do something, already in the near future."