23 june 2019
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has dismissed US President Donald Trump’s economic vision as part of the proposal for “peace” between the Israeli regime and Palestinians, dubbed “the deal of the century,” describing it as a new version of the Balfour Declaration.
“This project does not talk about the economy of the Palestinian state and its components, but tries to whitewash the occupation and settlement,” the ministry said in a statement released on Sunday.
It added, “The Trump team is trying to restrict the Palestinian economy with the chains of occupation while depriving it of any opportunity to prosper and develop as an independent state economy. This [prosperity] cannot happen under occupation, settlements, the theft of the Palestinian land and the takeover of the Palestinian natural resources."
“Day after day, the reality of the American intentions and attitudes against the Palestinian people and their rights unfolds in what can be called the obnoxious Trump Declaration or the Balfour Declaration II, which denies the existence of the Palestinian people," the ministry underlined.
The Balfour Declaration, which resulted in a significant upheaval in the lives of Palestinians, was issued on November 2, 1917. It is regarded as one of the most controversial and contested documents in the modern history of the Arab world.
The declaration turned the Zionist aim of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine into a reality, when Britain publicly pledged to establish "a national home for the Jewish people" there.
The statement noted, “[America] is dealing with the Palestinian people as a population group that was found by accident in this place that has been given by Trump to the Israelis.”
“The Trump administration is reproducing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict using new templates and does not seek to solve it in any way. The problem of this type of thinking is its theoretical nature and its complete alienation from reality,” it concluded.
The $50 billion so-called "peace to prosperity" plan, set to be presented by Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner at a US-led workshop in Bahrain on June 25-26, envisions a global investment fund to purportedly lift the Palestinian and neighboring Arab state economies.
According to Kushner, the 10-year plan "would create a million jobs in the West Bank and Gaza."
"It would take their unemployment rate from about 30 percent to the single digits," he said. "It would reduce their poverty rate by half, if it's implemented correctly."
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committee, has strongly condemned Kushner's plan.
“First, lift the siege of Gaza, stop the Israeli theft of our land, resources and funds, give us our freedom of movement and control over our borders, airspace, territorial waters etc,” she said in a post on her Twitter page.
Ashrawi added, “Then, watch us build a vibrant prosperous economy as a free and sovereign people.”
Ismail Rudwan, a spokesman for Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement, also rejected Kushner's proposals.
“We reject the 'deal of the century' and all its dimensions, the economic, the political and the security dimensions," Rudwan told Reuters news agency.
"The issue of our Palestinian people is a nationalistic issue; it is the issue of a people who are seeking to be free from occupation. Palestine isn't for sale, and it is not an issue for bargaining. Palestine is a sacred land and there is no option for the occupation, except to leave,” he pointed out.
“This project does not talk about the economy of the Palestinian state and its components, but tries to whitewash the occupation and settlement,” the ministry said in a statement released on Sunday.
It added, “The Trump team is trying to restrict the Palestinian economy with the chains of occupation while depriving it of any opportunity to prosper and develop as an independent state economy. This [prosperity] cannot happen under occupation, settlements, the theft of the Palestinian land and the takeover of the Palestinian natural resources."
“Day after day, the reality of the American intentions and attitudes against the Palestinian people and their rights unfolds in what can be called the obnoxious Trump Declaration or the Balfour Declaration II, which denies the existence of the Palestinian people," the ministry underlined.
The Balfour Declaration, which resulted in a significant upheaval in the lives of Palestinians, was issued on November 2, 1917. It is regarded as one of the most controversial and contested documents in the modern history of the Arab world.
The declaration turned the Zionist aim of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine into a reality, when Britain publicly pledged to establish "a national home for the Jewish people" there.
The statement noted, “[America] is dealing with the Palestinian people as a population group that was found by accident in this place that has been given by Trump to the Israelis.”
“The Trump administration is reproducing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict using new templates and does not seek to solve it in any way. The problem of this type of thinking is its theoretical nature and its complete alienation from reality,” it concluded.
The $50 billion so-called "peace to prosperity" plan, set to be presented by Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner at a US-led workshop in Bahrain on June 25-26, envisions a global investment fund to purportedly lift the Palestinian and neighboring Arab state economies.
According to Kushner, the 10-year plan "would create a million jobs in the West Bank and Gaza."
"It would take their unemployment rate from about 30 percent to the single digits," he said. "It would reduce their poverty rate by half, if it's implemented correctly."
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committee, has strongly condemned Kushner's plan.
“First, lift the siege of Gaza, stop the Israeli theft of our land, resources and funds, give us our freedom of movement and control over our borders, airspace, territorial waters etc,” she said in a post on her Twitter page.
Ashrawi added, “Then, watch us build a vibrant prosperous economy as a free and sovereign people.”
Ismail Rudwan, a spokesman for Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement, also rejected Kushner's proposals.
“We reject the 'deal of the century' and all its dimensions, the economic, the political and the security dimensions," Rudwan told Reuters news agency.
"The issue of our Palestinian people is a nationalistic issue; it is the issue of a people who are seeking to be free from occupation. Palestine isn't for sale, and it is not an issue for bargaining. Palestine is a sacred land and there is no option for the occupation, except to leave,” he pointed out.
The Islamic Action Front in Jordan has strongly denounced the government for intending to participate in the Bahrain normalization conference.
In a statement on Sunday, the Action Front said that the Jordanian government’s decision to attend the economic workshop in Manama would confer legitimacy on the conspiracy being hatched against Jordan and Palestine.
It also described the decision as “a violation of the Jordanian constants with regard to the Palestinian cause, Jerusalem and the Hashemite custodianship of the holy sites,” and “a provocation to the popular stance against the deal of the century and the Bahrain conference.”
The Action Front called on the Jordanian government to backtrack on its decision to participate in the conference and align itself with the popular position that rejects the deal of the century and its products.
In a statement on Sunday, the Action Front said that the Jordanian government’s decision to attend the economic workshop in Manama would confer legitimacy on the conspiracy being hatched against Jordan and Palestine.
It also described the decision as “a violation of the Jordanian constants with regard to the Palestinian cause, Jerusalem and the Hashemite custodianship of the holy sites,” and “a provocation to the popular stance against the deal of the century and the Bahrain conference.”
The Action Front called on the Jordanian government to backtrack on its decision to participate in the conference and align itself with the popular position that rejects the deal of the century and its products.
Palestinian Finance Minister Shukri Bishara
Palestinian Finance Minister Shukri Bishara has rejected the recently-released details about the economic section of a US-devised plan on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an “illusion” that will fail to bring about peace.
Addressing an Arab League meeting in the Egyptian capital city of Cairo on Sunday, Bishara slammed a June 25-26 meeting Bahrain, during which Washington is set to unveil the economic aspect of US President Donald Trump’s so-called “deal of the century.”
“We don’t need the Bahrain meeting to build our country, we need peace, and the sequence of (the plan) — economic revival followed by peace is unrealistic and an illusion,” he said.
The White House on Saturday unveiled the details of the economic portion of Trump’s deal, which would inject $50 billion into struggling economies in the Middle East over the next ten years.
Under the document, dubbed “Peace to Prosperity,” over half of the funds ($28 billion) would go toward the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the remaining to Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, which have absorbed Palestinian refugees.
'Lebanon won't exchange Palestinian cause with US money'
Separately on Sunday, Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri emphasized that his country would not be lured by the American initiative to invest billions in the country in return for settling Palestinian refugees.
“Those who think that waving billions of dollars can lure Lebanon, which is under the weight of a suffocating economic crisis, into succumbing or bartering over its principles are mistaken,” he said in a statement.
At the forefront of Lebanon’s principles is the rejection of settling Palestinian refugees who must have the right of return to their homeland, he added.
Palestinian Finance Minister Shukri Bishara has rejected the recently-released details about the economic section of a US-devised plan on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an “illusion” that will fail to bring about peace.
Addressing an Arab League meeting in the Egyptian capital city of Cairo on Sunday, Bishara slammed a June 25-26 meeting Bahrain, during which Washington is set to unveil the economic aspect of US President Donald Trump’s so-called “deal of the century.”
“We don’t need the Bahrain meeting to build our country, we need peace, and the sequence of (the plan) — economic revival followed by peace is unrealistic and an illusion,” he said.
The White House on Saturday unveiled the details of the economic portion of Trump’s deal, which would inject $50 billion into struggling economies in the Middle East over the next ten years.
Under the document, dubbed “Peace to Prosperity,” over half of the funds ($28 billion) would go toward the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the remaining to Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, which have absorbed Palestinian refugees.
'Lebanon won't exchange Palestinian cause with US money'
Separately on Sunday, Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri emphasized that his country would not be lured by the American initiative to invest billions in the country in return for settling Palestinian refugees.
“Those who think that waving billions of dollars can lure Lebanon, which is under the weight of a suffocating economic crisis, into succumbing or bartering over its principles are mistaken,” he said in a statement.
At the forefront of Lebanon’s principles is the rejection of settling Palestinian refugees who must have the right of return to their homeland, he added.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas once again rejects as “a humiliating blackmail” US President Donald Trump’s upcoming deal on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict hours after Washington released details about the economic aspect of the highly-controversial plan.
Speaking to officials of his Fatah party in Ramallah on Saturday, Abbas said “there can be no economic solution before there’s a political solution.”
He slammed the plan as a “humiliating blackmail” and said the deal “cannot pass because it ends the Palestinian cause.”
The White House on Saturday unveiled the economic plan, which would inject $50 billion into struggling economies in the Middle East over the next ten years.
Under the document, dubbed “Peace to Prosperity,” over half of the funds ($28 billion) would go toward the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the remaining to Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, which have absorbed Palestinian refugees.
It also includes a $5 billion “transportation network” to connect the West Bank and Gaza.
The economic portion of the US plan was released just three days before a US-led workshop in Manama, Bahrain, where the initiative is set to be discussed.
Elsewhere in his comments, Abbas stressed that the Palestinians would not attend the Bahrain conference.
“We are not going to attend this workshop, the reason is that the economic situation should not be discussed before a political situation, so long as there is no political situation, we do not deal with any economic situation,” he said.
All Palestinian factions have already boycotted the Bahrain event, arguing that Washington was offering financial rewards for Palestinians to accept the Israeli occupation.
Separately on Saturday, Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeineh denounced both the Bahrain meeting and Trump’s “peace” plan, called the “deal of the century.”
“The American administration is committing daily mistakes against the Palestinian people. Without Palestinian approval, there is no value to any meeting, and without a political horizon, no one will deal with any effort. This conference was born dead just like the deal of the century,” he said.
Additionally, Arab Israeli lawmaker Ayman Odeh slammed Trump’s proposal, stressing that the only solution to the conflict is ending the Israeli occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state.
“Somebody has to explain to Trump that not everything can be bought for money, certainly not the just national aspirations of the Palestinian people,” he tweeted.
However, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser — who has been in charge of drawing up the deal — described the economy first approach as “necessary” and “less controversial.”
Speaking to officials of his Fatah party in Ramallah on Saturday, Abbas said “there can be no economic solution before there’s a political solution.”
He slammed the plan as a “humiliating blackmail” and said the deal “cannot pass because it ends the Palestinian cause.”
The White House on Saturday unveiled the economic plan, which would inject $50 billion into struggling economies in the Middle East over the next ten years.
Under the document, dubbed “Peace to Prosperity,” over half of the funds ($28 billion) would go toward the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the remaining to Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, which have absorbed Palestinian refugees.
It also includes a $5 billion “transportation network” to connect the West Bank and Gaza.
The economic portion of the US plan was released just three days before a US-led workshop in Manama, Bahrain, where the initiative is set to be discussed.
Elsewhere in his comments, Abbas stressed that the Palestinians would not attend the Bahrain conference.
“We are not going to attend this workshop, the reason is that the economic situation should not be discussed before a political situation, so long as there is no political situation, we do not deal with any economic situation,” he said.
All Palestinian factions have already boycotted the Bahrain event, arguing that Washington was offering financial rewards for Palestinians to accept the Israeli occupation.
Separately on Saturday, Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeineh denounced both the Bahrain meeting and Trump’s “peace” plan, called the “deal of the century.”
“The American administration is committing daily mistakes against the Palestinian people. Without Palestinian approval, there is no value to any meeting, and without a political horizon, no one will deal with any effort. This conference was born dead just like the deal of the century,” he said.
Additionally, Arab Israeli lawmaker Ayman Odeh slammed Trump’s proposal, stressing that the only solution to the conflict is ending the Israeli occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state.
“Somebody has to explain to Trump that not everything can be bought for money, certainly not the just national aspirations of the Palestinian people,” he tweeted.
However, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser — who has been in charge of drawing up the deal — described the economy first approach as “necessary” and “less controversial.”
22 june 2019
The White House has unveiled the economic component of its so-called peace plan for the Middle East as the Trump administration continues attempts to buy its way to clinching the “Deal of Century.”
Released Saturday, the so-called Peace to Prosperity involves $25 billion in new investment to aid Palestinians within the next 10 years.
“This is going to be the opportunity of the century if they have the courage to pursue it,” said Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law who also serves as the White House senior adviser.
By unveiling "the most ambitious and comprehensive international effort for the Palestinian people to date," the Trump administration was allegedly trying to "empower the Palestinian people to build a prosperous and vibrant Palestinian society."
‘Palestine for sale’
According senior Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) official Hanan Ashrawi, Kushner’s plan is “all abstract promises.”
“If they really care about the Palestinian economy they should start by lifting the siege of Gaza, stopping Israel stealing our money and our resources and our land and opening up our territorial waters, our air space and our borders so we can freely export and import,” Ashrawi told Reuters.
Palestinian resistance movement Hamas also announced that “Palestine isn’t for sale.”
“We reject the ‘deal of the century’ and all its dimensions, the economic, the political and the security dimensions,” Hamas official Ismail Rudwan told Reuters. “The issue of our Palestinian people is a nationalistic issue, it is the issue of a people who are seeking to be free from occupation. Palestine isn’t for sale, and it is not an issue for bargaining. Palestine is a sacred land and there is no option for the occupation except to leave,” he said.
The so-called Peace to Prosperity, which is to be presented at a conference in Bahrain next week, also involves paying another $25 billion to neighboring Arab states.
The plan further aims at the construction of a $5 billion transportation corridor to connect the occupied West Bank to the Gaza Strip.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt said last Sunday that the political portion of the plan could be delayed until November.
Trump's Mideast plan envisions $50 billion investment in Palestinian economy
The peace proposal's main architect, Jared Kushner, says the economic part of the so-called 'Deal of the Century' includes 179 infrastructure and business projects that would create a million jobs in the West Bank and Gaza, reducing Palestinian poverty by half
The Trump administration's $50 billion Middle East economic plan calls for creation of a global investment fund to lift the Palestinian and neighboring Arab state economies, and construction of a $5 billion transportation corridor to connect the West Bank and Gaza, according to U.S. officials and documents reviewed by Reuters.
The "economy first" approach toward reviving the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process could be a hard sell to a largely skeptical region. The plan, set to be presented by President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, at an international conference in Bahrain next week, includes 179 infrastructure and business projects, according to the documents.
More than half of the $50 billion would be spent in the economically troubled Palestinian territories over 10 years while the rest would be split between Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan. Some of the projects would be in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, where investments could benefit Palestinians living in adjacent Gaza, a crowded and impoverished coastal enclave.
The plan also proposes nearly a billion dollars to build up the Palestinians' tourism sector, a seemingly impractical notion for now given the frequent flareups between Israeli forces and militants from Hamas-ruled Gaza, and the tenuous security in the West Bank.
The Trump administration hopes that other countries, principally wealthy Gulf states, and private investors, would foot much of the bill, Kushner said.
The unveiling of the economic blueprint follows two years of deliberations and delays in rolling out a broader peace plan between Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinians, who are boycotting the event, have refused to talk to the Trump administration since it recognized Jerusalem as the Israeli capital in late 2017.
Kushner made clear in two interviews with Reuters that he sees his detailed formula as a game-changer, despite the view of many Middle East experts that he has little chance of success where decades of U.S.-backed peace efforts have failed.
"I laugh when they attack this as the 'Deal of the Century'," Kushner said of Palestinian leaders who have dismissed his plan as an attempt to buy off their aspirations for statehood. "This is going to be the 'Opportunity of the Century' if they have the courage to pursue it."
Kushner said some Palestinian business executives have confirmed their participation in the conference, but he declined to identify them. The overwhelming majority of the Palestinian business community will not attend, businessmen in the West Bank city of Ramallah said.
Several Gulf Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, will also participate in the June 25-26 U.S.-led gathering in Bahrain's capital, Manama, for Kushner's rollout of the first phase of the Trump peace plan. Their presence, some U.S. officials say privately, appears intended in part to curry favor with Trump as he takes a hard line against Iran, those countries' regional arch-foe.
The White House said it decided against inviting the Israeli government because the Palestinian Authority would not be there, making do instead with a small Israeli business delegation.
POLITICAL DISPUTES REMAIN
There are strong doubts whether potential donor governments would be willing to open their checkbooks anytime soon, as long as the thorny political disputes at the heart of the decades-old Palestinian conflict remain unresolved.
The 38-year-old Kushner - who like his father-in-law came to government steeped in the world of New York real estate deal-making - seems to be treating peacemaking in some ways like a business transaction, analysts and former U.S. officials say.
Palestinian officials reject the overall U.S.-led peace effort as heavily tilted in favor of Israel and likely to deny them a fully sovereign state of their own.
Kushner's attempt to decide economic priorities first while initially sidestepping politics ignores the realities of the conflict, say many experts.
"This is completely out of sequence because the Israeli-Palestinian issue is primarily driven by historical wounds and overlapping claims to land and sacred space," said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator for Republican and Democratic administrations.
Kushner acknowledges that "you can't push the economic plan forward without resolving the political issues as well." The administration, he said, will "address that at a later time," referring to the second stage of the peace plan's rollout now expected no earlier than November.
Kushner says his approach is aimed at laying out economic incentives to show the Palestinians the potential for a prosperous future if they return to the table to negotiate a peace deal.
White House officials have played down expectations for Manama, which will put Kushner just across the Gulf from Iran at a time of surging tensions between Tehran and Washington.
Kushner, for instance, is calling it a "Prosperity to Peace workshop" instead of a conference, and a "vision" instead of an actual plan. He stressed that governments would not be expected to make financial pledges on the spot.
"It is a small victory that they are all showing up to listen and partake. In the old days, the Palestinian leaders would have spoken and nobody would have disobeyed," he said.
TRAVEL CORRIDOR
Kushner's proposed new investment fund for the Palestinians and neighboring states would be administered by a "multilateral development bank." Global financial lenders including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank plan to be present at the meeting.
A signature project would be to construct a travel corridor for Palestinian use that would cross Israel to link the West Bank and Gaza. It could include a highway and possibly a rail line. The narrowest distance between the territories, whose populations have long been divided by Israeli travel restrictions, is about 40 km (25 miles).
Kushner insists that if executed the plan would create a million jobs in the West Bank and Gaza, reduce Palestinian poverty by half and double the Palestinians' GDP.
But most foreign investors will likely stay clear for the moment, not only because of security and corruption concerns but also because of the drag on the Palestinian economy from Israel's West Bank occupation that obstructs the flow of people, goods and services, experts say.
Kushner sees his economic approach as resembling the Marshall Plan, which Washington introduced in 1948 to rebuild Western Europe from the devastation of World War Two. Unlike the U.S.-funded Marshall Plan, however, the latest initiative would put much of the financial burden on other countries.
Trump would "consider making a big investment in it" if there is a good governance mechanism, Kushner said. But he was non-committal about how much the president, who has often proved himself averse to foreign aid, might contribute.
Economic programs have been tried before in the long line of U.S.-led peace efforts, only to fail for lack of political progress. Kushner's approach, however, may be the most detailed so far, presented in two pamphlets of 40 and 96 pages each that are filled with financial tables and economic projections.
In Manama, the yet-to-released political part of the plan will not be up for discussion, Kushner said.
The economic documents offer no development projects in predominantly Arab east Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.
What Kushner hopes, however, is that the Saudis and other Gulf delegates will like what they hear enough to urge Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to consider the plan.
The message Kushner wants them to take to Ramallah: "We'd like to see you go to the table and negotiate and try to make a deal to better the lives of the Palestinian people."
Palestinian officials fear that, even with all the high-priced promises, Kushner's economic formula is just a prelude to a political plan that would jettison the two-state solution, the long-time cornerstone of U.S. and international peace efforts.
Released Saturday, the so-called Peace to Prosperity involves $25 billion in new investment to aid Palestinians within the next 10 years.
“This is going to be the opportunity of the century if they have the courage to pursue it,” said Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law who also serves as the White House senior adviser.
By unveiling "the most ambitious and comprehensive international effort for the Palestinian people to date," the Trump administration was allegedly trying to "empower the Palestinian people to build a prosperous and vibrant Palestinian society."
‘Palestine for sale’
According senior Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) official Hanan Ashrawi, Kushner’s plan is “all abstract promises.”
“If they really care about the Palestinian economy they should start by lifting the siege of Gaza, stopping Israel stealing our money and our resources and our land and opening up our territorial waters, our air space and our borders so we can freely export and import,” Ashrawi told Reuters.
Palestinian resistance movement Hamas also announced that “Palestine isn’t for sale.”
“We reject the ‘deal of the century’ and all its dimensions, the economic, the political and the security dimensions,” Hamas official Ismail Rudwan told Reuters. “The issue of our Palestinian people is a nationalistic issue, it is the issue of a people who are seeking to be free from occupation. Palestine isn’t for sale, and it is not an issue for bargaining. Palestine is a sacred land and there is no option for the occupation except to leave,” he said.
The so-called Peace to Prosperity, which is to be presented at a conference in Bahrain next week, also involves paying another $25 billion to neighboring Arab states.
The plan further aims at the construction of a $5 billion transportation corridor to connect the occupied West Bank to the Gaza Strip.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt said last Sunday that the political portion of the plan could be delayed until November.
Trump's Mideast plan envisions $50 billion investment in Palestinian economy
The peace proposal's main architect, Jared Kushner, says the economic part of the so-called 'Deal of the Century' includes 179 infrastructure and business projects that would create a million jobs in the West Bank and Gaza, reducing Palestinian poverty by half
The Trump administration's $50 billion Middle East economic plan calls for creation of a global investment fund to lift the Palestinian and neighboring Arab state economies, and construction of a $5 billion transportation corridor to connect the West Bank and Gaza, according to U.S. officials and documents reviewed by Reuters.
The "economy first" approach toward reviving the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process could be a hard sell to a largely skeptical region. The plan, set to be presented by President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, at an international conference in Bahrain next week, includes 179 infrastructure and business projects, according to the documents.
More than half of the $50 billion would be spent in the economically troubled Palestinian territories over 10 years while the rest would be split between Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan. Some of the projects would be in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, where investments could benefit Palestinians living in adjacent Gaza, a crowded and impoverished coastal enclave.
The plan also proposes nearly a billion dollars to build up the Palestinians' tourism sector, a seemingly impractical notion for now given the frequent flareups between Israeli forces and militants from Hamas-ruled Gaza, and the tenuous security in the West Bank.
The Trump administration hopes that other countries, principally wealthy Gulf states, and private investors, would foot much of the bill, Kushner said.
The unveiling of the economic blueprint follows two years of deliberations and delays in rolling out a broader peace plan between Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinians, who are boycotting the event, have refused to talk to the Trump administration since it recognized Jerusalem as the Israeli capital in late 2017.
Kushner made clear in two interviews with Reuters that he sees his detailed formula as a game-changer, despite the view of many Middle East experts that he has little chance of success where decades of U.S.-backed peace efforts have failed.
"I laugh when they attack this as the 'Deal of the Century'," Kushner said of Palestinian leaders who have dismissed his plan as an attempt to buy off their aspirations for statehood. "This is going to be the 'Opportunity of the Century' if they have the courage to pursue it."
Kushner said some Palestinian business executives have confirmed their participation in the conference, but he declined to identify them. The overwhelming majority of the Palestinian business community will not attend, businessmen in the West Bank city of Ramallah said.
Several Gulf Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, will also participate in the June 25-26 U.S.-led gathering in Bahrain's capital, Manama, for Kushner's rollout of the first phase of the Trump peace plan. Their presence, some U.S. officials say privately, appears intended in part to curry favor with Trump as he takes a hard line against Iran, those countries' regional arch-foe.
The White House said it decided against inviting the Israeli government because the Palestinian Authority would not be there, making do instead with a small Israeli business delegation.
POLITICAL DISPUTES REMAIN
There are strong doubts whether potential donor governments would be willing to open their checkbooks anytime soon, as long as the thorny political disputes at the heart of the decades-old Palestinian conflict remain unresolved.
The 38-year-old Kushner - who like his father-in-law came to government steeped in the world of New York real estate deal-making - seems to be treating peacemaking in some ways like a business transaction, analysts and former U.S. officials say.
Palestinian officials reject the overall U.S.-led peace effort as heavily tilted in favor of Israel and likely to deny them a fully sovereign state of their own.
Kushner's attempt to decide economic priorities first while initially sidestepping politics ignores the realities of the conflict, say many experts.
"This is completely out of sequence because the Israeli-Palestinian issue is primarily driven by historical wounds and overlapping claims to land and sacred space," said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator for Republican and Democratic administrations.
Kushner acknowledges that "you can't push the economic plan forward without resolving the political issues as well." The administration, he said, will "address that at a later time," referring to the second stage of the peace plan's rollout now expected no earlier than November.
Kushner says his approach is aimed at laying out economic incentives to show the Palestinians the potential for a prosperous future if they return to the table to negotiate a peace deal.
White House officials have played down expectations for Manama, which will put Kushner just across the Gulf from Iran at a time of surging tensions between Tehran and Washington.
Kushner, for instance, is calling it a "Prosperity to Peace workshop" instead of a conference, and a "vision" instead of an actual plan. He stressed that governments would not be expected to make financial pledges on the spot.
"It is a small victory that they are all showing up to listen and partake. In the old days, the Palestinian leaders would have spoken and nobody would have disobeyed," he said.
TRAVEL CORRIDOR
Kushner's proposed new investment fund for the Palestinians and neighboring states would be administered by a "multilateral development bank." Global financial lenders including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank plan to be present at the meeting.
A signature project would be to construct a travel corridor for Palestinian use that would cross Israel to link the West Bank and Gaza. It could include a highway and possibly a rail line. The narrowest distance between the territories, whose populations have long been divided by Israeli travel restrictions, is about 40 km (25 miles).
Kushner insists that if executed the plan would create a million jobs in the West Bank and Gaza, reduce Palestinian poverty by half and double the Palestinians' GDP.
But most foreign investors will likely stay clear for the moment, not only because of security and corruption concerns but also because of the drag on the Palestinian economy from Israel's West Bank occupation that obstructs the flow of people, goods and services, experts say.
Kushner sees his economic approach as resembling the Marshall Plan, which Washington introduced in 1948 to rebuild Western Europe from the devastation of World War Two. Unlike the U.S.-funded Marshall Plan, however, the latest initiative would put much of the financial burden on other countries.
Trump would "consider making a big investment in it" if there is a good governance mechanism, Kushner said. But he was non-committal about how much the president, who has often proved himself averse to foreign aid, might contribute.
Economic programs have been tried before in the long line of U.S.-led peace efforts, only to fail for lack of political progress. Kushner's approach, however, may be the most detailed so far, presented in two pamphlets of 40 and 96 pages each that are filled with financial tables and economic projections.
In Manama, the yet-to-released political part of the plan will not be up for discussion, Kushner said.
The economic documents offer no development projects in predominantly Arab east Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.
What Kushner hopes, however, is that the Saudis and other Gulf delegates will like what they hear enough to urge Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to consider the plan.
The message Kushner wants them to take to Ramallah: "We'd like to see you go to the table and negotiate and try to make a deal to better the lives of the Palestinian people."
Palestinian officials fear that, even with all the high-priced promises, Kushner's economic formula is just a prelude to a political plan that would jettison the two-state solution, the long-time cornerstone of U.S. and international peace efforts.
The photo taken on June 21, 2019 shows the wreckage of a US spy drone shot down by Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) the previous day.
A senior British official says a Saudi intelligence chief has lobbied the UK to conduct limited strikes on Iranian military targets after US President Donald Trump allegedly cancelled such raids.
The official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Middle East Eye news portal on Friday that the Saudi intelligence chief had called for Iran strikes during his visit to London alongside Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir.
The Saudi request, however, fell on deaf ears, he said, adding, "Our people were skeptical." The Saudi intelligence chief was told a plain "no" in response to his plea, the British source said.
According to the source, the Saudi official had tried to link Iran to the June 13 attacks against oil tankers in the Sea of Oman, but his British counterparts were "not impressed" with the evidence provided by the official.
At the weekend, the Saudi intelligence chief will head to Jerusalem al-Quds to engage in similar anti-Iran lobbying efforts with Israeli officials and hawkish US National Security Adviser John Bolton, he added.
On Thursday, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) shot down an intruding US surveillance drone in the country’s southern coastal province of Hormozgan.
The following day, the elite military force put into display the wreckage of the American spy drone, which had been retrieved from Iran's territorial waters.
The unmanned US aircraft had been taken down by Iran's indigenous Khordad 3 air defense system after it breached the country's airspace and began gathering intelligence and spying.
In a tweet early on Friday, Trump said that he had initially approved military strikes against Iran, but pulled back just 10 minutes before the attack.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran would take the US drone incursion to the UN and show that Washington is "lying" about the downing of its unmanned aircraft in international waters. tweet
Zarif had earlier rejected the US claim of Iran’s involvement in the tanker attacks as part of “sabotage diplomacy” being pursued by Trump and his hawkish allies, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
On Friday, Trump spoke with bin Salman over the phone about Iran, according to the White House.
Tensions have been running between Iran and the US in recent weeks, with Washington stepping up its provocative military moves in the Middle East.
Tehran believes Washington has a hand in a set of suspicious regional incidents in recent weeks, such as the tanker attacks, in a bid to pin the blame on Iran and put more pressure on the country.
A senior British official says a Saudi intelligence chief has lobbied the UK to conduct limited strikes on Iranian military targets after US President Donald Trump allegedly cancelled such raids.
The official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Middle East Eye news portal on Friday that the Saudi intelligence chief had called for Iran strikes during his visit to London alongside Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir.
The Saudi request, however, fell on deaf ears, he said, adding, "Our people were skeptical." The Saudi intelligence chief was told a plain "no" in response to his plea, the British source said.
According to the source, the Saudi official had tried to link Iran to the June 13 attacks against oil tankers in the Sea of Oman, but his British counterparts were "not impressed" with the evidence provided by the official.
At the weekend, the Saudi intelligence chief will head to Jerusalem al-Quds to engage in similar anti-Iran lobbying efforts with Israeli officials and hawkish US National Security Adviser John Bolton, he added.
On Thursday, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) shot down an intruding US surveillance drone in the country’s southern coastal province of Hormozgan.
The following day, the elite military force put into display the wreckage of the American spy drone, which had been retrieved from Iran's territorial waters.
The unmanned US aircraft had been taken down by Iran's indigenous Khordad 3 air defense system after it breached the country's airspace and began gathering intelligence and spying.
In a tweet early on Friday, Trump said that he had initially approved military strikes against Iran, but pulled back just 10 minutes before the attack.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran would take the US drone incursion to the UN and show that Washington is "lying" about the downing of its unmanned aircraft in international waters. tweet
Zarif had earlier rejected the US claim of Iran’s involvement in the tanker attacks as part of “sabotage diplomacy” being pursued by Trump and his hawkish allies, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
On Friday, Trump spoke with bin Salman over the phone about Iran, according to the White House.
Tensions have been running between Iran and the US in recent weeks, with Washington stepping up its provocative military moves in the Middle East.
Tehran believes Washington has a hand in a set of suspicious regional incidents in recent weeks, such as the tanker attacks, in a bid to pin the blame on Iran and put more pressure on the country.
