Kushner pitches plan in Mideast
But proposal for economic support draws Palestinian protests
MANAMA, Bahrain — President Donald Trump’s sonin-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, appealed Tuesday for the Palestinians to consider the $50 billion economic-support plan they have already rejected because it does not include a political resolution to the long-running conflict with the Israelis.
Kushner, speaking at a conference in Bahrain, defended the proposal as the foundation of any eventual peace plan. Meanwhile, Palestinians protested the plan in the streets of the West Bank, Gaza and elsewhere.
“We don’t need money. We are not hungry for bread,” said Gaza physician Said Jadba, one of the protesters jamming the streets of West Bank cities as the plan was unveiled. “We are hungry for dignity.”
The president’s son-in-law sought to defend his long-anticipated plan at the start of a two-day workshop aimed at building support for a program to combine private investment and support from regional governments to transform economically devastated Palestinian communities.
“My direct message to the Palestinians is that despite what those who have let you down in the past have told you, President Trump and America has not given up on you,” Kushner said. “This workshop is for you, and if this is executed correctly, it will lead to a better future for the Palestinian people: a future of dignity, prosperity and opportunity.”
Kushner’s audience in the tiny Gulf kingdom did not include any official Palestinian delegation. Israel, which will have to sign off on many of the proposal’s projects, also wasn’t represented by government officials. Those who heard Kushner in person were Arab finance ministers, the heads of international financial organizations and global business executives and investors.
While the representation was broad, many countries’ delegations were not led by Cabinet ministers, an indication of their uncertainty about the proposal’s viability.
The Palestinians have rejected the proposal — which aims in 10 years to create 1 million new jobs, slash unemployment and improve living standards in the West Bank, Gaza and across the Middle East — because it does not include a pathway for ending Israel’s occupation and granting independence. U.S. officials say the political portion of the plan may not be released until fall.
Kushner acknowledged that a political solution is key to the success of the economic proposal. He said it was more important to first set out what is economically possible.
“Agreeing on an economic pathway forward is a necessary precondition to resolving what has been a previously unsolvable political situation,” he said.
Trump boiled it down to even simpler terms: “We have to get economic support because the Palestinians don’t have money, and we have to help the Palestinians with some money,” he told reporters at the White House.
But the Palestinians say that without proposals on borders, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees, the economic plan is meaningless. To express their rejection, Palestinians in Gaza called a general strike on Tuesday to protest the meeting, with demonstrators in the West Bank burning effigies of Trump and featuring a donkey pasted over with images of Gulf royals.
Trump, Kushner and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin argue that a new approach is needed precisely because previous efforts have fallen short. They note that the heads of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank will attend and speak at the event.
Enthusiasm has been tempered by the Trump administration’s refusal to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the “two-state solution” that has long been viewed internationally as the only viable path to lasting peace.
The Palestinians cut ties with the White House after Trump recognized contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017, and they say they will not accept a peace proposal from an administration they see as biased toward Israel.
Even the Arab delegations attending the meeting in Bahrain have couched their participation with reaffirmations of support for an eventual Palestinian state.
Saudi Arabia, one of the few Arab countries to send its foreign minister to the event, said it remained committed to that end, with a state based on the border that existed before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab nations to have signed peace deals with Israel, are sending only midlevel representatives to Bahrain and said they would not abandon demands for a Palestinian state.