Peace talks are the only way to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Donald Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ is anything but – discussions have to take place between both sides if real progress is to be made

Related video: Trump says Jerusalem will be Israel's ‘undivided capital’ under peace plan

To nobody’s great surprise, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has condemned Donald Trump’s “deal of the century” peace plan for the region. He is certainly right to criticise it, and for a variety of sound reasons – but he should still engage with it, very badly flawed as it is.

Far from being the grand plan it has been marketed as by Washington, one of the supposed parties to the deal, the Palestinians played no part in its negotiation. It is a fait accompli, presented as a “take it or leave it” deal. Were a Palestinian nation state fully operational and recognised, it might be said to be an unequal treaty between a conquering nation and a vanquished one.

However, the “deal for the century” violates various UN resolutions, and most significantly the historic UN Resolution 242 which defines the status of the occupied territories won by Israel after the 1967 war, and requires their evacuation. Now, Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, boldly declares, with US backing, that the occupied areas are not in fact occupied territories at all but de facto and de jure, under the deal, integral territory of Israel. Last year, in a symbolic break with longstanding US policy, America recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, much to Mr Netanyahu’s satisfaction. An alternative Palestinian capital in the eastern suburbs of Jerusalem is suggested. Mr Abbas says Jerusalem is “not for sale”.

In fact, in its tone and effect, the Trump plan, drafted by the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, leaves the Palestinian territory as little more than an Israeli protectorate, its sovereignty severely delimited. Any Palestinian leader would find it a hard sell.

Not only that but there is a plain, albeit implicit, threat contained in the plan; if the Palestinians do not go along with it at some point in the four years they have been allowed to ruminate on it, then the pattern of illegal settlement and occupation will expand and encroach further. The process, as it has been more or less since 1967, will be inexorable. Every day the Palestinians’ attempts to deny the ever-changing facts on the ground is a day further away from the established of anything approaching a Palestinian state.

Yet, ugly as the threat is, it undeniably reflects reality. As we have seen for some decades, the Israelis, backed more and more unconditionally by the Trump White House, have all the leverage – substantial military forces and a proven willingness to use them, internally and externally.

The Palestinian leadership has a difficult choice. It could refuse to engage, continue to denounce the “conspiracy deal” and reject all of its contents outright. There is a case for this, but only because the Palestinians’ best chance lies with the November elections and a change of personnel in the White House. Any of the Democrat contenders would be more sincerely committed to a true two-state solution than President Trump. Given that Mr Netanyahu’s rival, Benny Gantz, supports the deal and was there at its public presentation, the Palestinians can forget any assistance from the fall of Likud from power.

Should that hope of a new US president fail, however, then the Palestinians will have to engage with the proposals, even if they are extreme (which they are) and even if the US and Israel are putting a common front, rather than America playing its traditional role of honest broker. There are things – more than seven decades after the creation of the state of Israel – that are not going to change and there are things that are more or less negotiable.

The least the Palestinians could do is to sit down, with the Americans, or the Israelis, or both. Or with the Jordanians and others intimately affected by the so-called deal and discuss the proposals step by step, clause by clause. If, for example, Israel believes the 1967 borders are militarily indefensible, then it might be pointed out that they defended them quite competently that year. Moreover, the Palestinians should share sovereignty in certain respects as an alternative to annexation by the state of Israel.

Of course the outlook is not bright – it rarely has been in the decades since 1948, for reasons that have been well rehearsed. No peace settlement, anywhere, is fair to all, and none is ever guaranteed success – again that is the bitter experience of the Middle East. But the talking has to go on, even if sometimes it seems futile and even demeaning to do so; because violence has served the peoples of the region even less well.