The US State Department announced Dec. 18 that the visit of Vice President Mike Pence in Israel has been delayed until mid-January. This delay  constitutes the only ray of light in the darkness that has surrounded Jerusalem ever since President Donald Trump recognized the city as the capital of Israel on Dec. 6. So far, Pence has only contributed to the flames ignited by his boss and the poisonous Christmas gifts sent from America; senior officials in the Trump administration said Dec. 15 that the Western Wall would forever remain under Israeli sovereignty. More so, Pence has decided to visit the holy site himself. In fact, as governor of Indiana, the fervent evangelist was the first state leader to pass legislation boycotting companies that support BDS — the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. If Trump was the rosy dream of the Israeli right, Pence is the dream come true.

Were the declaration on Jerusalem a preview to an honest and logical plan by the Trump administration for Israeli-Palestinian peace, the failing Palestinian leadership might have swallowed the bitter pill. However, that was not the reason Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas lost what was left of his trust in American mediation. He knows what lies behind the much-touted Trump administration peace plan, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned during his Dec. 11 visit to Brussels. As far as Abbas is concerned, this diplomatic blueprint is the final and absolute nail in the coffin of the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accord and its two-state vision.

According to a Dec. 3 New York Times report, the new US plan gives the Palestinians a state of their own but only in noncontiguous parts of the West Bank (Area A, under Palestinian control, and Area B, under Palestinian civil control), the vast majority of Israeli settlements in the West Bank would remain intact, East Jerusalem would not become the Palestinian capital and there would be no right of return for Palestinian refugees. The report went on to say that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman presented outlines of the plan to Abbas last month.

Middle East scholar Geoffrey Aronson, the co-founder and chairman of the Mortons Group, reported Dec. 12, citing Arab and European sources, that at the heart of the Trump plan is a proposal to expand the Gaza Strip and establish the State of Palestine there. According to the report, to sweeten the pot, the Saudi prince offered Abbas a $10 billion grant.