U.S. to solicit funds for Middle East peace plan in Bahrain, though details remain vague

[June 25, 2019]  By Matt Spetalnick and Stephen Farrell

MANAMA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Trump administration launches its Israeli-Palestinian peace plan on Tuesday with a bid to drum up $50 billion dollars to fund investment in the region, although the political details remain a secret and Palestinians have already denounced the approach as a sell-out.

The two-day international meeting, led by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, has been billed as the first part of Washington's broader political blueprint to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to be announced at a later date.

But neither the Israeli nor Palestinian governments will attend the curtain-raising event in Bahrain's capital Manama.

There will be close scrutiny as to whether attendees such as Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Gulf states show any interest in making donations to a U.S. plan that has already drawn bitter criticism from Palestinians and many others in the Arab world.

Although the event is supposed to focus on economics, Gulf Arab states hope it will also be used to show their solidarity with the Trump administration over its hard line against Iran, a senior Gulf diplomat said.

Trump on Monday imposed sanctions on Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other officials after Iran downed an U.S. drone last week.

The Saudi delegation is led by Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan and includes the governor of sovereign wealth fund Public Investment Fund, state news agency SPA said on Tuesday.

Under the Kushner plan, donor nations and investors would contribute about $50 billion to the region, with $28 billion going to the Palestinian territories - the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip - as well as $7.5 billion to Jordan, $9 billion to Egypt and $6 billion for Lebanon.

Among 179 proposed infrastructure and business projects is a $5 billion transport corridor to connect the West Bank and Gaza.

"I laugh when they attack this as the ‘deal of the century,’" Kushner told Reuters, referring to Trump's claim for the plan.

"This is going to be the ‘opportunity of the century’ if they have the courage to pursue it."

Kushner, a Trump adviser who like his father-in-law comes from the world of New York real estate, is presenting his plan in a pair of pamphlets filled with graphs and statistics that resemble an investment prospectus.

GRAPHIC: Milestones in Trump's Palestinian policy - https://tmsnrt.rs/2FtJXGi

GRAPHIC: Key Indicators for the Palestinian economy - https://tmsnrt.rs/2X8OOaZ

PEACE TO PROSPERITY

Expectations for success are low. The Trump team concedes that the economic plan - billed "Peace to Prosperity" - will be implemented only if a political solution to one of the world’s most intractable conflicts is reached.

Any such solution would have to settle long-standing issues such as the status of Jerusalem, mutually agreed borders, satisfying Israel's security concerns and Palestinian demands for statehood, and the fate of Israel's settlements and military presence in territory in Palestinians want to build that state.

In an interview with Al Jazeera set to air on Tuesday, Kushner offered a rare glimpse into the plan's possible political contours, saying a deal would not adhere to the Arab Peace Initiative, a Saudi-led plan that has been the Arab consensus on the necessary elements for a deal since 2002.

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin arrive at Manama's Four Seasons hotel, the venue for the U.S.-hosted "Peace to Prosperity" conference, in Manama, Bahrain, June 25, 2019. REUTERS/Matt Spetalnick

"I think we all have to recognize that if there ever is a deal, it's not going to be along the lines of the Arab Peace Initiative. It will be somewhere between the Arab Peace Initiative and between the Israeli position," he said.

The Arab initiative calls for a Palestinian state drawn along borders that predate Israel's capture of territory in the 1967 Middle East war, as well as a capital in East Jerusalem and the right of return for refugees, points rejected by Israel.

Hanging over the initiative are questions about whether the Trump team plans to abandon the "two-state solution," which involves creation of an independent Palestinian state living side by side with Israel.

The United Nations and most nations back the two-state solution and it has underpinned every peace plan for decades.

But the Trump team - led by Kushner, Trump's Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman - has consistently refused to commit to it, keeping the political stage of the plan a secret.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a close Trump ally, has his own domestic problems, and faces an election and possible corruption charges. He denies any wrongdoing.

"We'll hear the American proposition, hear it fairly and with openness," Netanyahu said on Sunday. No Israeli ministers will attend, but an Israeli business delegation is expected.

Palestinian leaders have boycotted the workshop, and are refusing to engage with the White House - accusing it of pro-Israel bias after a series of recent Trump decisions. Kushner told Reuters that "some" Palestinian businessmen would attend.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was scathing about its prospects of success.

"Money is important. The economy is important. But politics are more important. The political solution is more important," he said.

Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, has found itself in rare agreement with its arch-rival Abbas.

Hamas official Mushir al-Masri the Trump approach "seeks to turn our political cause into a humanitarian cause, and to merge the occupation into the region."

Kushner said that even without the Israeli and Palestinian governments represented, the presence of Israeli business officials and journalists with their counterparts from the Arab world would be significant.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Stephen Farrell; Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Rami Ayyub in Ramallah; Writing by Stephen Farrell; Editing by Peter Cooney and Angus MacSwan)

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