US Congresswoman proposes cutting Israel aid

Washington(ANN)-US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan will not involve giving land from Egypt’s Sinai peninsula to the Palestinians, an American envoy said on Friday, Reuters reports.

Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s Middle East envoy, apparently sought to deny reports on social media that the long-awaited plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would involve extending Gaza into the northern Sinai along Egypt’s Mediterranean coast.

“Hearing reports our plan includes the concept that we will give a portion of Sinai (which is Egypt’s) to Gaza. False!”, Greenblatt, one of the architects of the proposal, tweeted on Friday.

The American plan is expected to be unveiled once Israel’s newly re-elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forms a government coalition and after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ends in June.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won the Democratic primary in New York's 14th congressional district [Rothman's/Facebook]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won the Democratic primary in New York’s 14th congressional district [Rothman’s/Facebook]

Meanwhile, US Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has proposed the US cut military and economic aid worth $3 billion a year from Israel in response to the re-election of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister. Middileeastmonitor, reports.

“I think these are part of conversations we are having in our caucus, but I think what we are really seeing is an ascent of authoritarianism across the world. I think that Netanyahu is a Trump-like figure,” she said during an interview with Yahoo News’ “Skullduggery” podcast.

“I think it is certainly on the table. I think it’s something that can be discussed,” she added referring to cutting the aid.

Ocasio-Cortez explained that there are many ways to protect the Palestinians from Israeli violations including a bill proposed by Democratic Minnesota Representative Betty McCollum that would prohibit US aid to Israel from being used to detain Palestinian children in the West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged during his election campaign to annex illegal settlements built on the Palestinian lands in the West Bank.

Ocasio-Cortez’s view on Israel and Palestine have received extensive media attention. The Democratic candidate expressed her support for the Palestinians during the Land Day protests in Gaza in which 135 Palestinians were killed by Israeli occupation forces and a further 13,000 were injured.

“This is a massacre,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.

“I hope my peers have the moral courage to call it such.”

“No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification. Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity, as anyone else.”

Trump’s senior advisor Jared Kushner said on Wednesday the plan would require compromise by all parties, a source familiar with his remarks said. Middileeatsmonitor reports.

It is unclear whether the plan will propose outright the creation of a Palestinian state, the Palestinians’ core demand.

The Palestinians have long sought to set up a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The last round of U.S.-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians broke down in 2014.