WASHINGTON _ Republican donors, politicians and religious leaders watched from front row seats at the White House on Tuesday as President Donald Trump unveiled his long-awaited vision for Middle East peace, highlighting the potential political benefits of the policy for his 2020 campaign.
In the front row, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson _ the largest donors in Republican politics _ sat beside the team that crafted Trump's 80-page proposal for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, was in attendance. Former Sen. Joe Lieberman, who is seen as effective in rallying Jewish support in Florida, sat near Ralph Reed, one of the president's most vocal evangelical supporters.
It was a show of force of politically active communities pivotal to his victory in November.
"It's an excellent plan which provides the most realistic road to Palestinian statehood," Alan Dershowitz, a prominent attorney defending Trump in his Senate impeachment trial this week, told McClatchy in an email. Dershowitz attended the White House event before the trial resumed Tuesday afternoon.
"It should serve as a basis for further negotiation," Dershowitz added.
While Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and leading opposition figure, Benny Gantz, have endorsed the plan as a basis for negotiations, Palestinian leadership in both the West Bank and Gaza have dismissed the proposal outright. "After the nonsense that we heard today we say a thousand no's to the Deal of The Century," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said, convening an emergency meeting of various Palestinian factions in Ramallah.
White House guests were treated to a brief reception as they awaited the release of a plan that has been the subject of fevered speculation for over three years. No Democratic lawmakers attended, and only one _ Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy _ had been briefed on the contents of the policy earlier that morning.
"It's good to be here with the other distinguished ladies and gentlemen of your administration, with senators and members of Congress who are Israel's greatest friends on Capitol Hill," said Netanyahu, standing alongside Trump and nodding to a corner of the White House East Room where Republican senators and congressmen sat.
The plan is a radical departure from past administration efforts. Trump said he would recognize Israeli settlements as sovereign Israeli territory, and its security presence along the Jordan Valley as a permanent border, adopting several positions popular among Israel's political right.
But the plan also compels Israel to freeze further settlement construction for four years and endorses a limited, demilitarized yet sovereign Palestinian state _ a plan that could meet the minimum requirements of some Jewish voters in the swing state of Florida still overwhelmingly supportive of a two-state solution to the conflict.
The Trump campaign has identified the president's policies toward Israel as some of his most popular selling points among Republican voters, who were particularly supportive of his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and the relocation of the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv. "Under this vision, Jerusalem will remain Israel's undivided _ very important _ undivided capital," Trump said to applause, while a potential Palestinian state would have a capital of its own along the city's eastern outskirts.
Leaders who have strived to unite conservative and liberal Jewish organizations, including the heads of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and B'nai Brith International, attended the Tuesday event and appeared receptive to what they heard. They declined to comment.
But evangelical voters, who in recent months have shown signs of souring on the president and supporting a Democratic impeachment inquiry into his call for political investigations in Ukraine, may have heard a proposal that will reinvigorate support for him come November.
"Our majestic biblical heritage will be able to live, breathe and flourish in modern times," Trump told the audience. "All humanity should be able to enjoy the glories of the Holy Land. This part of the world is forever connected to the human soul and the human spirit _ these ancient lands should not be symbols of conflict, but eternal symbols of peace."
