Speaking onboard Air Force One on his way to Miami last Thursday, President Trump compared one of the world's greatest territorial disputes to a business deal. He said, "I love doing deals," The Guardian reported. He added, "They say peace between Israel and the Palestinians is the toughest – the toughest of any deal."

The president concluded by saying that he would "probably release" his plan for the Middle East before meeting separately at the White House this week with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his opposition leader, Benny Gantz.

The Guardian added, "Few political aspects of the proposal, which has been drafted by Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have been released. [But] Kushner proposed a $50b economic plan in July to a cool regional reception."

A spokesman for the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said he had a "clear and unwavering position" to reject any Trump-led initiatives.

Because Palestinian leadership is convinced that Trump will allow Israel to permanently control Palestinian territory, Abbas' spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeinah, said: "We warn Israel and the American administration against crossing the red lines."

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The truth is, Palestinian Arab and other Islamic leaders have been deadlocked with Israel over the Holy Land since their very inception. They accuse Prime Minister Netanyahu and other conservatives of fighting against the peace process, but what peace process are they referring to? There's neither peace nor a process. I encourage readers to go on YouTube and check out the five-minute video history summarizing the 4,000 years of upheaval in the Holy Land and its most sacred city, Jerusalem.

In 1947, the newly established United Nations officially accepted the idea to divide or partition the Holy Land – including Jerusalem – into a region for the Jews (Israel) and a region for the Arabs (Palestine). As a result, Britain relinquished its stronghold in the area on May 14, 1948, when Israel made its Declaration of Independence.

Tel Aviv became the temporary seat of government until the State of Israel moved it to Jerusalem in December 1949. Despite the shift in location, the U.S. embassy was built in Tel Aviv in 1966. At the same time, believe it or not, the U.S. consulate has had a presence in West Jerusalem since 1844. Yes, you read that year correctly. (It is further interesting to note that other countries – like Britain and France – have their consulates in East Jerusalem.)

In 2018, the new U.S. embassy officially moved, under President Trump's direction, to the site of the U.S. consulate general. We are the first country to open an embassy in Jerusalem since before 1980, while 86 countries continue today to have their embassies in Tel Aviv.

The U.S. recognized Israel as a sovereign state in 1948, and it has acknowledge Israel's capital and declared its intent to move its embassy there for over 20 years. In 2018, President Trump fulfilled what three previous administrations promised to do but never did.

By doing so, the president fulfilled what Congress set out to do over two decades ago when a bilateral majority vote passed the "Jerusalem Embassy Act," which formally recognized the sacred city as the country's capital and called for the U.S. Embassy to be moved there from Tel Aviv by 1999. Yes, 21 years ago was the deadline for Washington to move our embassy – just another broken promise from the swamp!

The Washington Post explained the two-decade-old majority decision: "Support for the bill was overwhelming. It passed the Senate by a 93 to 5 vote, with four Republicans and one Democrat voting no. It passed the House 374 to 37, with 153 Democrats joining most of the new Republican majority that had swept into power in 1994."

What's crazy is this: Israel is the only country in the world not allowed to choose its own capital, at least in its enemies' eyes around the world. However, one of Israel's Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the country's undivided capital. As a response, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution condemning Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem, declaring it a violation of international law. However, that hasn't ever stopped Israel from occupying and fighting for its capital, which is also why Netanyahu has also encouraged other countries to move their embassies to Jerusalem just as he did President Trump and our former presidents.

So, most Palestinian territory was granted back in 1948 by the United Nations, but Israel rejected those demarcation lines from the outset, ultimately winning back sovereignty over such areas as the West Bank, Golan Heights, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War. It wasn't until the disastrous 1993 Oslo Accords, which culminated with President Clinton pushing for the awkward handshake between Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestine Liberation Organization chairman, Yasser Arafat, that things went from bad to worse.

The Oslo Accords granted limited autonomy to Palestine by further dividing territorial governance, but in the end the "peace treaty" did nothing but divide and escalate the tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. Many Israelis and others despised Rabin for yielding land they believed was divinely granted to them. Rabin was assassinated just two years later. Massive walls would eventually be erected and increased security measures taken everywhere to stop the steady stream of terrorism from areas governed by the Palestinian Authority or others, like Hamas.

Trump tweeted a year ago, "After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!" (Especially because it borders on Syria with its civil war that involves nearly every superpower in the world.)

Critics often love to point out that the disputed area called the Golan Heights (also sometimes referred to as "the thumb of Israel," being only 44 miles north to south and 27 miles east to west) was captured by Israel from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed in 1981 in a move not recognized internationally. But what they fail in explaining is that it was technically a "recapture," at least from Israel's point of view, because the land had been theirs, too, in history past going back to Old Testament times.

As Briticanna.com documents from the earliest point of Hebrew history: "The area's name is from the biblical city of refuge Golan in Bashan (Deuteronomy 4:43; Joshua 20:8)."

Wikipedia even elaborated: "According to the Bible, an Amorite Kingdom in Bashan was conquered by Israelites during the reign of King Og. Throughout the Old Testament period, the Golan was 'the focus of a power struggle between the Kings of Israel and the Aramaeans who were based near modern-day Damascus.' The Itureans, an Arab or Aramaic people, settled there in the 2nd century B.C. and remained until the end of the Byzantine period. Organized Jewish settlement in the region came to an end in 636 [A.D.] when it was conquered by Arabs under Umar ibn al-Khattāb. In the 16th century, the Golan was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and was part of the Vilayet of Damascus until it was transferred to French control in 1918. When the mandate terminated in 1946, it became part of the newly independent Syrian Republic."

Syrian control at this point only complicates the issue and compounds the problem, especially with so much instability and so many international powers at work and war in and outside that war-torn country.

(I encourage everyone to purchase and watch WND's inspiring and educational documentary, "70 Years," as well as the movie, "In Our Hands: The Battle for Jerusalem," to understand the proper historical perspective about Israel and Jerusalem.)

So, how does President Trump hope to engage his art of the deal and heal the Israeli-Palestinian divide with his plan?

For starters, he's invited Prime Minister Netanyahu and his opposition leader, Benny Gantz, to Washington for talks.

Trump said about the Palestinians reaction to his plan, "I'm sure they maybe will act negatively at first, but it's actually very positive for them. But they have a lot of incentive to do it."

The Guardian again reported that: "Washington reversed decades of its own policy by refraining from endorsing a two-state solution. It has also recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, cut millions of dollars in aid to Palestinians, and announced that it no longer views Israeli settlements in occupied territory as 'inconsistent with international law.'"

Historically, the U.S. has been Israel's strongest ally outside the Middle East, and Israel has been the strongest ally of the U.S. in the Middle East. And it needs to stay that way.

One thing I know for sure is that we all can make this powerful contribution – it's something my wife, Gena, and I often come back to when we see the mess in the Middle East: Follow what the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) commands: "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: 'May they prosper who love you.'" (Psalm 122:6).