Arabs reject $50bn US aid plan
INDIA yesterday rejected a US State Department’s annual report on religious freedom that raised questions about the government’s inability to curb violent attacks on the country’s minority Muslims.
Preparing for a visit by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tomorrow, India’s foreign ministry issued a stiff rejoinder to the US criticism.
“India is proud of its secular credentials, its status as the largest democracy and a pluralistic society with a long-standing commitment to tolerance and inclusion,” said Raveesh Kumar, the ministry’s spokesperson.
The US report, released on Friday, said some senior officials from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party last year had made “inflammatory speeches” against religious minorities.
Kumar said India’s constitution guaranteed fundamental rights and religious freedom of all citizens. ARAB politicians and commentators greeted US President Donald Trump’s Middle East $50billion (R716bn) economic vision with derision and exasperation, although some in the Gulf called for it to be given a chance.
In Israel, Tzachi Hanegbi, a cabinet member close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, described Palestinians’ rejection of the “peace to prosperity” plan as tragic.
Set to be presented by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, at a conference in Bahrain starting tomorrow, the blueprint envisions a global investment fund to lift the Palestinian and neighbouring Arab economies and is part of broader efforts to revive the Israeli-Palestininan peace process.
“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,” Palestinian Finance Minister Shukri Bishara said yesterday. The lack of a political solution, which Washington has said would be unveiled later, prompted rejection not only from Palestinians but also in Arab countries with which Israel would seek normal relations.
From Sudan to Kuwait, commentators and ordinary citizens denounced Kushner’s proposals in strikingly similar terms: “colossal waste of time”, “non-starter”, “dead on arrival”.
Egyptian liberal and leftist parties slammed the workshop as an attempt to “consecrate and legitimise” occupation of Arab land and said in a joint statement that any Arab participation would be “beyond the limits of normalisation” with Israel.
While the precise outline of the political plan has been shrouded in secrecy, officials briefed on it say Kushner has jettisoned the two-state solution – the long-standing worldwide formula that envisages an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.
The Palestinian Authority is boycotting the Bahrain meeting, saying only a political solution will solve the problem. It said Kushner’s “abstract promises” were an attempt to bribe Palestinians into accepting Israeli occupation.
The White House has not invited the Israeli government to Bahrain.
On Israel Radio, Hanegbi said Washington had tried to create “a little more trust and positivity” by presenting an economic vision but had touched a raw nerve for Palestinians.
“They’re still convinced that the whole matter of an economic peace is a conspiracy, aimed only at plying them with funds for projects and other goodies, only so they will forget their nationalist aspirations. This is of course just paranoia, but it’s another tragedy for the Palestinians,” he said.
US-allied Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, will take part in the Bahrain gathering along with officials from because of the economic impact. Last week, an independent UN report on the killing found “credible evidence” to warrant further investigation into the possible role of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“Saudi Arabia is a big buyer of (US) product. It’s a big producer of jobs,” Trump said. He said the subject of Khashoggi “didn’t come up” when he and the crown prince spoke last week. He said the Middle Egypt, Jordan and Morocco. Lebanon and Iraq will not attend. “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,” parliament speaker Nabih Berri said.
Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Shia group Hezbollah, which wields significant influence over the government, has previously called the plan “an historic crime” that must be stopped.
Thousands of people marched through the Moroccan capital Rabat yesterday to express their solidarity with the Palestinians and their opposition to the Kushner plan.
Arab analysts believe Kushner’s economic plan is an attempt to buy off opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land with a multibillion dollar bribe to pay off the neighbouring hosts of millions of Palestinian refugees to integrate them.
| Reuters East is a “vicious, hostile place” and that other countries in the region were guilty of the type of behaviour Saudi Arabia had been accused of engaging in. | AP