World rejects Washington's Middle East peace plan

The US peace plan for the Middle East is increasingly looking all but dead, given that the proposal lacks justice and will not gain recognition from the international community, experts said in the wake of mounting opposition.

The European Union on Tuesday rejected parts of US President Donald Trump's plan for the troubled region. Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief, said the initiative departs from "internationally agreed parameters".

His comments amounted to the latest rejection of the so-called peace plan since its announcement last month. Opposition has already been voiced by Palestine, Iran and the Arab League, as well as the United Nations.

The response stems from the plan being only a "partial agreement", which only takes Israeli interests into account and ignores the Palestinians' claims, said Shu Meng, a researcher at the Middle East Studies Institute at Shanghai International Studies University.

Citing the key issues between Palestine and Israel－the settlements, the status of Jerusalem and the return of the refugees, Shu said the plan did not seek to balance out the two countries' competing positions.

"Although Israel will not establish new settlements for the time being, recognizing that all existing settlements belong to Israel can be equal to recognizing that Israel's occupation of Palestine is legal," she said.

Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and strictly limiting the number of refugees allowed to return also made the agreement "a tailor-made plan for Israel", Shu added.

"Such an unfair plan will not get the support of the international community, and can also further worsen the situation in the region," she said.

Sun Degang, a researcher from the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said the plan "fails to fundamentally eliminate the root causes" of the conflicts between Israel and Palestine, and may even cause regional conflicts.

Sun said the plan only provided the obligations that Palestine must assume, rather than outline the equal obligations required of the two sides.

Consensus challenged

He said the plan challenged the consensus of the international community on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and would not be accepted globally.

The consensus, also known as the two-state solution, envisages an independent state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel, west of the Jordan River, based on the borders before a war in 1967.

Trump's plan, unveiled last week, foresees the eventual creation of a Palestinian state, but falls far short of minimal Palestinian demands and would leave sizable chunks of the occupied West Bank in Israeli hands.

Borrell said in the statement that "to build a just and lasting peace, the unresolved final status issues must be decided through direct negotiations between both parties", noting the issues of the borders of a Palestinian state and the final status of Jerusalem were among those still in dispute.

Steps by Israel to annex Palestinian territory, "if implemented, could not pass unchallenged", he said.

The foreign ministers of the 22 member states of the Arab League on Sunday unanimously rejected Trump's proposal, saying the plan "does not satisfy the minimum of the rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people".

However, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Morocco have suggested it could be the basis for future talks and applauded Washington's efforts, but they do not think the current iteration is viable.

Russian news agencies cited a Kremlin spokesman as saying on Sunday that the peace plan presented by Trump contravenes several UN resolutions.

"We see the reaction from the Palestinians, we see the reaction of a wide range of Arab states which have sided with the Palestinians in rejecting the plan. This, obviously, makes one think about its feasibility," Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying.

The Palestinian Authority has cut all ties with the United States and Israel, including those relating to security, after rejecting the plan put forward by Trump.

Reuters and AP contributed to this story.