Much water has flowed in the Potomac river since Dec. 18, 1969, when Nixon Administration Secretary of State William Rodgers first presented the proposed outline for an Israeli-Jordanian deal based on the 1967 lines.
In the 46 years between the unveiling of the Rogers Plan and Donald Trump entering the White House, consecutive US Administrations from Carter to Obama have proposed endless ideas, formulas, and outlines upon which an agreement with the Palestinians was to be built.
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With one exception – George W. Bush's letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of April 14, 2004, promising to recognize the new demographic reality created on the ground since 1967 as part of the permanent status arrangement – all other initiatives have been tethered to the principle of a withdrawal to 1967 lines as a basis for a deal.
And now, three years on from Trump's inauguration, it appears as though the president has shunted aside this ruling paradigm, and has instead set forth a new, unconventional path in his efforts to breathe life into the diplomatic process.
In fact, we now have another vital building block that is supposed to connect and link a set of moves: Firstly, Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital (and later also Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights), continuing on to the efforts to establish a pan-Arab supportive economic foundation, backed by America, which includes a $50 billion basket of incentives for the Palestinians.
At the center of the current framework sits American recognition of Israeli sovereignty over all settlements in Judea and Samaria, and in the Jordan Valley. This is coupled with a proposal for land swaps and the negation of the right of return.
Moreover, while recognition of Israeli sovereignty is immediate, the road to a Palestinian state as set out by the president is incremental and requires the Palestinian leadership to first meet a series of preconditions.
As a businessman and entrepreneur who is not bound like professional politicians are by conventions, accepted wisdoms and precedents, Trump is once again operating outside the box. And so in order to create a new dynamic in the Israeli-Palestinian arena, he is basing his plan on a package of economic incentives that are meant to compensate the Palestinians for their acquiescence to accept the reality of the limits of their aspirations on the immediate territorial level, over the right of return, and the attributes of the future Palestinian state.
What we have here is another example of the White House's ability to unilaterally disengage from a convention that has been accepted since the Six-Day War, and to completely abandon the 1967 lines as the starting point for any future arrangement.
Moreover, in complete contrast to the approach of his predecessor Obama, who saw an Israeli-Palestinian deal as a precondition for advancing US interests in the entire region, the current White House approached the deal by looking at the entire Middle East, where the moderate Sunni components are meant to provide legitimacy from the outset and be mobilized as part of the effort to provide incentives and influence Ramallah.
Indeed, not only did we not see a preemptive nixing of the new framework by the Sunni bloc (which contradicts earlier proposals such as the 2002 Saudi peace plan), but there are even signs of the willingness – even if quiet – of a few key states in this bloc to go together down this new path forged by the American hegemony. It appears as though the American hegemony is fully exploiting the dependence of these players, in particular Saudi Arabia, on its goodwill in facing down other challenges (predominantly Iran).
In conclusion, even if the full implementation of the "deal of the century" and all its components seems a long way off, the president's support for a declaration of sovereignty has the potential for immediate implementation. In this regard, it can be seen as a formative event that will bring about a new reality, regardless of what happens with the other elements of the plan.
