TRUMP’S MIDEAST PEACE PLAN TO BE UNVEILED TUESDAY.

BEIRUT • U.S. President Donald Trump’s vision for Mideast peace has hit a raw nerve in Lebanon, reviving fears of any plan that would permanently settle Palestinian refugees in the country and shift its Christian-muslim sectarian balance.

The first part of the White House plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians focuses on encouraging $50 billion of investment in the Palestinian territories and three neighbouring Arab states, one of them Lebanon.

Lebanese of all sects are objecting to ideas that have surfaced so far, seeing $6 billion for Lebanon as an inducement to accept the settlement of Palestinians who have lived as refugees in the country since Israel’s creation in 1948.

Rejecting the naturalization of Palestinians has been a rare point of agreement among Lebanese through a troubled history including the 1975-90 civil war in which Palestinian groups played a major role.

The first part of the plan is set to be unveiled by White House senior advisor Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, at a Bahrain conference on Tuesday. The Lebanese government was invited but is not attending.

The prospects of the plan getting anywhere do not look good: the Palestinian Authority is itself staying away from the conference and has refused to deal with the Trump administration for 18 months, accusing it of bias toward Israel.

Parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Shi’ite Muslim, came out strongly against Kushner’s plan on Sunday.

“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.

“The only investment that will not find fertile ground in Lebanon is any investment that comes at the expense of the Palestinian cause and the right of return.”

The heavily armed, Iranbacked Lebanese group Hezbollah has declared the plan a “historic crime” that must be stopped.

Fears over changes to Lebanon’s demography are most acutely felt by Lebanese Christians who are allotted half the seats in parliament and top state positions including the presidency under a sectarian power-sharing system.

Maronite Christian MP Nadim Gemayel, whose father Bashir Gemayel battled Palestinian groups during the civil war, cited blood spilled in the conflict as he warned Kushner against offering cash for the permanent settlement of Palestinians.

“Lebanon is not a real estate firm,” he wrote on Twitter.