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Reuters

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 Organisation (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”.
An Israeli cabinet minister welcomed the plan.
The Trump administration’s US$50 billion Middle East economic plan calls for creation of a global investment fund to lift the Palestinian and neighbouring Arab state economies, according to US officials and documents reviewed by Reuters.
One proposal is for the construction of a US$5 billion transport 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.”
Ceasefire between Israel and Palestine ends deadly two days of violence
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.”
Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said the plan looked promising.
“What’s been published until now looks good and even very good. We are always in favour of developing the Palestinian economy, ending the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, ensuring economic prosperity in the Palestinian communities,” he told Israeli Reshet TV.
“The entire world wants to help the Palestinians except for the Palestinians themselves.”
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 favour 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 US$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.


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Middle East

Palestinians reject Jared Kushner’s US$50 billion ‘economy first’ approach to Middle East peace

Palestinians hold banners and shout slogans as they rally against the US-led Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in Bahrain. Photo: AFP

epa07652303 Palestinians hold a poster against the US President Donald Trump, the Bahraini king Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a marathon 'run for Freedom' against the so-called 'Deal of the Century', planned by Trump to solve the conflict between Palestine and Israel at the West Bank city of Bethlehem, 16 June 2019. EPA-EFE/ABED AL HASHLAMOUN

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner is interviewed by Reuters at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, U.S., June 20, 2019. Picture taken June 20, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Ceasefire between Israel and Palestine ends deadly two days of violence

A building in the Gaza Strip destroyed by Israeli air strikes. Photo: AFP

EDITORS NOTE: Graphic content / Palestinians carry an injured boy outside a hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza strip on May 5, 2019. - Three Palestinians including a baby, were killed in Israeli strikes in northern Gaza, the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave said, as fears of a full conflict grew. (Photo by ANAS BABA / AFP)

TOPSHOT - A picture taken on May 5, 2019, shows the remains of a building in Gaza City after it was hit during Israeli air strikes. - Israel's military carried out waves of retaliatory strikes in the Gaza Strip today after Palestinian rockets hit Israeli cities as a deadly escalation showed no signs of slowing, raising fears of war. (Photo by MAHMUD HAMS / AFP)

TOPSHOT - The body of Saba Abu Arar, a Palestinian baby, lies at the morgue of al-Shifa hospita in Gaza City on May 4, 2019. - The baby was killed by an Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip today, the health ministry in the enclave said today. Israel's army on May 5, denied claims from Gazan authorities that an Israeli strike killed the baby and her pregnant relative, saying errant Hamas fire was to blame for the deaths. (Photo by MAHMUD HAMS / AFP)

An Israeli child on May 6, 2019, looks at the shattered glass of the entrance of a building that was damaged by a rocket strike from the Gaza Strip on the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, bordering the Palestinian enclave. - Palestinian leaders in Gaza agreed a ceasefire with Israel on today to end a deadly two-day escalation in violence that threatened to widen into war, officials with knowledge of the deal said. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP)

TOPSHOT - Young girls and a man gather among debris and shattered glass in a room that was hit during an Israeli air strike on Rafah in the southern Gaza strip on May 5, 2019. - Gaza militants fired fresh rocket barrages at Israel early today in a deadly escalation that has seen Israel respond with waves of strikes as a fragile truce again faltered and a further escalation was feared. (Photo by SAID KHATIB / AFP)

China begins free-trade talks with Palestine as it expands its influence in the Middle East

Memorandum of understanding signed during Chinese Vice-President Wang Qishan’s visit to Middle East
                Beijing says it supports ‘two-state solution’ to Palestine-Israel dispute

Chinese Vice-President Wang Qishan (second left) and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah witness the signing of a memorandum of understanding on free trade. Photo: Xinhua

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World

Senior Palestine official says the US plan was made up of ‘abstract promises’ and calls for political solution to conflict


Senior Palestine official says the US plan was made up of ‘abstract promises’ and calls for political solution to conflict.


Israel

Donald Trump

Diplomacy

US-China trade war

Palestinians reject Jared Kushner’s US$50 billion ‘economy first’ approach to Middle East peace

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}Senior Palestine official says the US plan was made up of ‘abstract promises’ and calls for political solution to conflict

Senior Palestine official says the US plan was made up of ‘abstract promises’ and calls for political solution to conflict