“In an immediate reaction to the Trump ‘Peace to Prosperity’ peace plan, Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said, ‘There has been an idea out there propagated by various organizations called ‘peace through Israeli victory.’ The idea being, ‘We impose absolute defeat on the Palestinians, and when they realize they are utterly defeated, then they will accept whatever is given to them, and everyone can go and have a better life.’ That is the best description of where we are now.’ …we say, guilty as charged.”

…But Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, scoffed at the plan, saying in a Jewish Week interview: “If you don’t care about democracy and the rule of law, this is great. The entire thing is framed in condescending, racist tones. Anything they [Palestinians] get is a gift that can be conditioned and retracted at will. … What was presented today was a statement that says Israel has the right to keep a huge chunk of the West Bank, that Israel always had a right to it, and it laid out a conditional Palestinian state on some of the land.” She added that the map proposed by the plan shows “non-contiguous Palestinian areas surrounded on all sides by Israel. … And the U.S. laid down conditions for a state that no Palestinians would ever accept. They guarantee the Palestinians will reject them. And Trump said this was their last chance.”

As the Trump administration prepares to release its Israeli-Palestinian peace blueprint, DW speaks with a Middle East expert [FMEP’s Lara Friedman] who fears the plan will ignore the Palestinians at the expense of lasting peace.

Jewish Currents’ publisher Jacob Plitman said in an interview that the publication is also expanding its roster of writers in addition to Beinart, bringing on as contributing or staff writers Lara Friedman of the Foundation for Middle East Peace; Elisheva Goldberg, media director of the New Israel Fund and a former adviser to former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni; Joshua Leifer, an associate editor at socialist magazine Dissent; and Chicago-based writer Mari Cohen.

Lara Friedman discusses the Israel-Palestine conflict and obstacles standing in the way of negotiations for possible peace agreements. Friedman is a Washington Insider, Middle East expert, and president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace.