Palestinians reject Kushner 'economy first' approach to Mideast peace
Palestinian officials on Saturday dismissed proposals
unveiled by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner for big money
projects to form the first economic portion of the Trump administration’s
long-awaited Middle East peace plan.
Senior Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official
Hanan Ashrawi said Kushner’s plans were “all abstract promises” and said only a
political solution would solve the conflict.
Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, was
more blunt, saying: “Palestine isn’t for sale”.
The Trump administration’s $50 billion Middle East economic
plan calls for creation of a global investment fund to lift the Palestinian and
neighboring Arab state economies, according to US officials and documents
reviewed by Reuters.
One proposal is for the construction of a $5 billion
transportation corridor to connect the West Bank and Gaza.
The “peace to prosperity” plan is set to be presented at an
international conference in Bahrain next week by Kushner, who told Reuters that
Palestinian leaders should consider the initiative.
“This is going to be the ‘Opportunity of the Century’ if
they have the courage to pursue it,” he said.
However Ashrawi, a veteran Palestinian negotiator and member
of the executive committee of the PLO, said only a political solution that
ended Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories would solve the
conflict.
Speaking to Reuters by phone from the West Bank city of
Ramallah, she said: “If they really care about the Palestinian economy they
should start by lifting the siege of Gaza, stopping Israel stealing our money
and our resources and our land and opening up our territorial waters, our air
space and our borders so we can freely export and import.”
She said the Trump administration’s stance was an “entirely
wrong approach”, adding: “They can end the occupation, which is the most basic
requirement for prosperity. There can be no prosperity under occupation.”
No Palestinian officials belonging to Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas’ PLO and Palestinian Authority will attend the conference in
Bahrain. The White House said it decided against inviting the Israeli
government because the PA would not be there.
Several Gulf Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, will
participate in the June 25-26 US-led gathering in Manama. Their presence, some
US officials say privately, appears intended in part to curry favor with Trump
as he takes a hard line against Iran, those countries’ regional arch-foe.
The economic revival plan would take place only if a
political solution to the region’s long-running problems is reached.
More than half of the $50 billion would be spent in the
economically troubled Palestinian territories over 10 years while the rest
would be split between Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan. Some of the projects would be
in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, where investments could benefit Palestinians living
in adjacent Gaza, a crowded and impoverished coastal enclave.
In Gaza, Hamas official Ismail Rudwan also rejected
Kushner’s proposals.
The armed Islamist group is the main internal rival to
Abbas, whose power base is in the West Bank. But both are in rare agreement
over the Trump administration.
“We reject the ‘deal of the century’ and all its dimensions,
the economic, the political and the security dimensions,” Rudwan told Reuters.
“The issue of our Palestinian people is a nationalistic
issue, it is the issue of a people who are seeking to be free from occupation.
Palestine isn’t for sale, and it is not an issue for bargaining. Palestine is a
sacred land and there is no option for the occupation except to leave,” he
said.