Missing the Point

How much money would it take for you to live in a country where you are at best a second class citizen with second class rights, limited in where you can travel, live, work and how you can vote, where your faith is considered at best an objectionable and barely tolerated belief system, out of the mainstream of the state’s official religion, where you need passes to move within your home country? A better job? $10K/year more? Never!!!!

They are gathering in Bahrain to begin Donald Trump’s “money is the solution” Palestinian peace plan. A naïve Jared Kushner – I could only get into Harvard when my father “donated” $2.6 million – special. OK, some Arab nations are politely attending the conference, but everyone knows nothing can or will happen.

“The White House website on Saturday [6/22] posted a plan to help Palestinians that was described as having the potential to facilitate more than $50 billion in new investment over 10 years. Its three initiatives focus on people, economy and government, and could transform the West Bank and Gaza, according to the plan.

“‘Peace to Prosperity lays out a vision for a prosperous Palestinian society supported by a robust private sector, an empowered people, and an effective government,’ the plan says. ‘It shows what is possible with peace plus investment, and how success is achievable through specific programs supported by a portfolio of realizable projects.’” Los Angeles Times, June 23^rd. No Palestinian representatives showed up. Israel, for political reasons, was not invited, but no worries, their committed representatives, Jared Kusher and U.S. Envoy Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s special representative for international negotiations, are there.

And, no, there was no tuchus oyfn tish, money on the table (literally Yiddish for “ass on the table”), just a willingness by the United States to “facilitate” a global initiative to raise an average of $5 billion a year for a decade from the international community for investment in Palestine. But even if there were an immediate and full $50 billion commitment funded solely by the United States, the entire notion of bribing a people to give up freedom and dignity for investment capital is as inane and laughable as it seems. The plan was such a joke that, well, presenting the specifics has indefinitely been postponed.

“No Palestinian representative, however, will attend the gathering in Bahrain. Palestinian leadership has boycotted the United States since Trump’s December 2017 announcement recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, omitting any reference to Palestinian aspirations to establish the capital of a future state in East Jerusalem.

“And ultimately, the U.S. did not invite Israel to the Bahrain gathering… [Greenblatt] said the oft-postponed Middle East peace plan’s final presentation will be delayed again, ‘probably’ until early November, because of the Israeli electoral calendar. [Right!]

“It is unclear what remains of the ‘ultimate deal’ for Middle East peace that Trump has been championing since his 2016 campaign, and few observers believe he will risk announcing any major peace plan during his reelection campaign.

“This is a remarkable denouement for a policy Trump was singularly focused on even before taking office, when he appointed Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and protege, to spearhead the plan.

“On Jan. 19, 2017, at an inauguration eve dinner for top Republican supporters, Trump affectionately turned to Kushner, who was seated with his wife, Trump’s older daughter, Ivanka, and who had celebrated his 36th birthday nine days earlier. Trump declared, ‘If you can't produce peace in the Middle East, nobody can.’

“Two and a half years later, Kushner, a real estate developer with no previous experience in diplomacy or politics, has shown no signs of bringing peace to the region. The administration is also in the midst of heightened tensions with Iran.

“Recent conversations with senior Palestinian and Israeli officials privy to Kushner’s work indicate that neither side expects to be provided with an American road map for Middle East peace in the foreseeable future.

“In separate interviews this month, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat and former Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, both of whom are familiar with the Kushner team’s efforts, told The Times they believed the initiative was unlikely to advance beyond the Bahrain workshop.

“‘It will be the biggest embarrassment for Kushner,’ Erekat said in an hour-long interview in his office in the West Bank city of Ramallah… ‘We appreciate the [nature of the] relationship between Kushner and Trump,’ he said, but the workshop is ‘already a failure.’” LA Times. Understatements of alarming proportions.

With foreign policy being among the Trump administration’s weakest and least effective efforts, it is equally clear that the United States has so repositioned itself as “all Netanyahu, all the time” that it is probably the least likely nation on earth to mediate the Israeli/Palestinian impasse to a peaceful solution. If anything, the United States has hardened each side to the crisis, making a real solution that much more difficult to achieve. If peace ever does come to the region, and don’t hold your breath, this is definitely not the path.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and the depth of ignorance of the historical facts and political realities underlying this Trump “peace plan” is staggering.