US will not release Middle East ‘deal of the century’ peace plan before Israeli election
- Move is designed so to keep plan’s details from becoming an issue in Israel’s September elections
The United States will not release the long-delayed political portion of its Israeli-Palestinian peace plan before Israel’s elections next month, White House Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt said on Wednesday.
The move, announced in a tweet by Greenblatt, keeps the plan’s details from becoming an issue in the election, in which the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a close ally of US President Donald Trump, is at stake.
“We have decided that we will not be releasing the peace vision (or parts of it) prior to the Israeli election,” Greenblatt said on Twitter.
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has been working behind the scenes on the plan to resolve the decades-old Israeli Palestinian conflict, although Palestinians, who say the Trump administration is too pro-Israel, say it is dead in the water.
A goal to raise tens of billions of dollars to fund the plan was announced earlier this year, but the political details have remained under wraps, with Kushner refusing to say even whether it would offer Palestinians a state of their own.