T. Belman. Increasingly it looks like all the leaks about the “plan” are near the target. It is not remotely the Jordan Option I was working toward. As I recall it was rumoured that we get to keep about half of Area “C”. Abu Dis as capital has been mentioned many times. It seems that the Gulf States are on board with it. But will Israel agree? Will Abbas agree.? More important, will the Palestinian people agree?
Obviously it is better than anything Israel has been offered before. In my plan we got to keep all the land and all the Arabs save for those we induce to emigrate. In this plan we get to keep most of the land and 800,000 less Arabs. We can then focus our efforts on getting as many of the rest to emigrate.
This interview was planned and had a purpose. I suspect that they are getting ready to releae the plan.
Itis clear that Saudi Arabia wants to be the custodian of Al Aksa Mosque but maybe not of the rest of the Temple Mount as I have poposed.
US envoy’s message to Palestinians: ‘Don’t allow your grandfather’s conflict to determine your children’s future’.
Jared Kushner speaking at the opening of the United States embassy in Jerusalem, May 14, 2018. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Washington is willing to engage with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas if he returns to negotiations, but if he is not willing, the United States will likely air its long-awaited blueprint for peace publicly, Jared Kushner said in a rare interview published Sunday in a Palestinian newspaper.
Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, made his comments to Al-Quds at the end of a five-country regional tour with Mideast negotiator Jason Greenblatt to promote the US plan. The PA has boycotted the duo and rejected the plan even before it has been released.
Kushner said he did “not directly” reach out to Abbas for a meeting, saying the Palestinian leader “knows that we are open to meeting him and continuing the discussion when he is ready. He has said publicly he will not meet us and we have opted not to chase him.”
Kushner said the plan will be ready “soon,” adding, “We are almost done.”
While saying he has no reason not to believe Abbas when the Palestinian leader says he is committed to peace, Kushner did question how much Abbas “has the ability to, or is willing to, lean into finishing a deal.”
Abbas, Kushner said, “has his talking points which have not changed in the last 25 years. There has been no peace deal achieved in that time. To make a deal, both sides will have to take a leap and meet somewhere between their stated positions. I am not sure President Abbas has the ability to do that.”
Kushner, who said the US team “has done a lot of listening,” said the Palestinian people do not feel like their lives are getting better, “and there is only so long you can blame that on everyone other than Palestinian leadership.”
He said that the Palestinians are “less invested in the politicians’ talking points than they are in seeing how a deal will give them and their future generations new opportunities, more and better paying jobs and prospects for a better life.”
Kushner said there are those who maintained that Abbas is only focused on his political survival “and cementing a legacy of not having compromised than on bettering the lives of the Palestinian people.”
Asked whether he thought that was the case, Kushner replied, “I hope not. My job is to work with the parties in charge, so I am ready to work with President Abbas if he is willing.”
Kushner, in a direct message to Palestinians, urged them “not to reject a plan they haven’t even seen.”
“A lot has happened in the world since this conflict began decades ago,” he said. “The world has moved forward while you have been left behind. Don’t allow your grandfather’s conflict to determine your children’s future.”
Kushner, who along with Greenblatt, met Saturday evening with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – their second meeting in two days – provided no specifics on the contours of the plan, but touted the significant economic benefits that could be derived from a deal.
“Think about the prospects for the Palestinian people over a five to 20-year horizon if they get massive investments in modern infrastructure, job training and economic stimulus” he said.
“The Palestinian people are industrious, well-educated and adjacent to the Silicon Valley of the Middle East – Israel,” Kushner added. “Israel’s prosperity would spill over very quickly to the Palestinians if there is peace.”
Kushner, in his only nod during the interview to the idea of a two-state solution, said while he believes strongly that “to make a peace deal you need to define and have secure borders, economically you want to eliminate boundaries and allow the economies to become more integrated to increase the opportunity and prosperity for all of the people – including the Jordanians and Egyptians and beyond.”
Asked by the interviewer, Al Quds editor-in-chief Walid Abu-Zalaf, if this means that what is being worked on is a regional plan, Kushner replied: “The actual deal points are between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but the economic plan we are working on can show what comes as part of a deal when it is achieved with some massive investments that will extend to the Jordanian and Egyptian people as well.”
Before coming to Jerusalem on the current trip, Kushner and Greenblatt visited Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Asked what the most important points in the plan were for the Arab leaders, he replied a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.
He said Arab leaders also want to see the Palestinians enjoying economic opportunity and dignity, and a deal that “brings about a realistic solution to the issues that have been debated for decades.”
They all insisted, Kushner said, “that al-Aqsa Mosque remain open to all Muslims who wish to worship.”
Regarding the situation in the Gaza Strip, Kushner said the people there are “hostages to bad leadership,” and as long at rockets are being fired and terror tunnels are being dug, “there will be a choke hold on resources allowed to enter. It’s a vicious cycle.”
Kushner said the only way to solve the problem is for the people of Gaza to “encourage the leadership to aim for a true cease-fire that gives Israel and Egypt the confidence to start allowing more commerce and goods” into the coastal strip.
Kushner took sharp issue with veteran Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat’s charge that the US is trying to divide Gaza from the West Bank.
“The last I checked they are divided, they are not connected by government or land and it’s needlessly become a dire humanitarian situation because the Palestinian leadership has made it a political situation,” he said.
Kushner said Gaza’s “downward spiral” over the last decade has been “greatly exacerbated by the PA’s salary cuts.”
“It’s time for the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to stop using the people of Gaza as pawns,” he said. “The narrative of victimhood may feel good for the moment and help you grab headlines, but it doesn’t do anything to improve lives.”
Netanyahu, at the weekly cabinet meeting, said there was a “special focus” in his talks with Kushner and Greenblatt on the situation in Gaza.
“I must say that there was absolute support for our positions and our actions to ensure the security of the State of Israel and its citizens in the area adjacent to the Gaza Strip, which was expressed publicly by the American administration’s envoys” he said. “The issue also came up of how it might be possible to resolve the humanitarian problem in Gaza without strengthening Hamas.”
Education Minister Naftali Bennett, meanwhile, let it be known that Israel will not automatically sign on to what the US might put in the plan.
“In the past few days, we have been hearing about a proposal that might come from the United States to the region. We will study in depth any proposal out of respect and friendship to the United States, which has proven that it views Israel as a national strategic asset and sees importance in Israel’s security,” he said. “With that, we will definitely insist on the national security interests of the State of Israel.”
Exact plan is still conjecture, as it is still being tested on the various parties. Then the various parties may all have objections to some or all of the plan.
The PA accepts NO plan from the USA. It is interested in the collapse or destruction of Israel and not making peace with it.
So, even when the Plan comes out Israel may not need to come against it because it may be moot! Kusher thinks by making it public the Pal populace may demand Abbas negotiate from it. This shows he does not understand that the Pal-Arab public want the right of return and all of the Old of Jerusalem for starters. They have been taught this is their right from birth.
Kushner and Trump have said on more than one occasion, the plan is not a take it or leave it proposal. They said, the intent was to use it as the starting point for negotiations. This is a benefit to Israel as this plan surely will be at least somewhat more advantageous to Israel, than the Clinton Plan which has more or less what Obama had operated on.
That said, I believe nothing will be agreed to as there no interlocutors on the Pal-Arab side to make peace with. I would be highly surprised if Egypt agreed to the proposal to let the Northern Sinai be used for industrial projects mostly employing Gazans. The most I see happening is an economic project or two being enacted. Nothing on a large political level. Continuation of Israeli and Gulf Arab Security Cooperation plus quiet business dealings.