Kushner questions Palestinian leader’s ability to make peace
JERUSALEM — Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser on the Middle East, said the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, was afraid to make peace with Israel, bore responsibility for the deteriorating situation in Gaza and was prioritizing his own political survival at the expense of his people’s needs.
Kushner made his comments in an interview published early Sunday by the Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds. He said the Trump administration was “almost done” preparing its peace plan and would roll it out soon.
He appeared to be attempting to goad Abbas into talks the leader has vowed to boycott, while doing considerable preemptive damage control in the event that Abbas does not relent.
But Kushner offered little in the way of enticements to Abbas. Asked what the leaders of other Arab nations wanted to see in an Israel-Palestinian settlement, the White House aide mentioned nothing about a sovereign Palestinian state or of Palestinian refugees.
He also did not mention Israeli settlements on the West Bank or using the 1967 lines as a starting point to draw borders and nothing about East Jerusalem serving as the Palestinian capital. He instead spoke of a potential Palestinian capital “in East Jerusalem.”
Kushner alluded to Arab nations’ desire that Al-Aqsa Mosque “remain open to all Muslims who wish to worship” — but said nothing about its being in the custodianship of a Palestinian state, suggesting it could remain under Israeli control in the administration’s plan.
Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, had angrily rejected U.S.-led negotiations after Trump reversed decades of U.S. policy in December by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Since then, Trump has cut aid for Palestinian refugees and moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.