U.S. offers economic plan for Mideast
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Saturday that it hopes to raise more than $50 billion to improve the lot of the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors, releasing an economic plan titled “Peace to Prosperity” that reverses the actual sequence of its peacemaking efforts in the Middle East.
The blueprint sets the stage for a two-day economic workshop this week to be convened by the White House in the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain. That gathering, in turn, is meant to lay the groundwork for a subsequent diplomatic proposal to end decades of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
But the political component of the plan has been repeatedly delayed, most recently by the call for new elections in Israel after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to assemble a governing coalition. Some experts question whether President Donald Trump will ever put a peace proposal on the table.
The 38-page plan sets ambitious goals, such as doubling the amount of drinkable water in the Palestinian territories and nearly tripling exports as a percentage of the Palestinian economy. With the promotional tone of a real estate prospectus, the plan envisions a variety of funding sources, such as grants and private equity.
But there are no concrete dollar commitments from the United States; the bulk of the money is to come from countries in the Persian Gulf.
It was not clear how the U.S. plans to entice these governments or private investors to ante up so much capital without confronting thorny issues such as the aspiration of the Palestinian people for their own state or the political status of Jerusalem.
The Palestinians swiftly rejected the plan, as they have for all of Trump’s peacemaking efforts since he announced in 2017 that he was recognizing Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.
“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.,” Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian negotiator, said in a tweet. “Then watch us build a vibrant prosperous economy as a free and sovereign people.”
Israeli officials reacted more mildly, with some noting that the plan seemed calculated to turn the Palestinians against their entrenched leaders. The officials expressed skepticism that Arab countries would foot the bill and noted that the plan sidestepped the difficult political issues.