Reuters, Manama :
Palestinians poured scorn on a $50 billion economic formula launched by the Trump administration for Israeli-Palestinian peace as the United States sought on Wednesday to win support for the plan as a foundation to ending the decades-old conflict.
Neither the Israeli nor Palestinian governments are attending the international meeting in Bahrain, orchestrated by U.S. President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The Palestinians and many other Arabs dismiss Kushner’s plan as pointless without a political solution based on the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Senior Palestine Liberation Organisation official Hanan Ashrawi said on Wednesday the Manama conference was ” quite disingenuous”.
“It is totally divorced from reality. The elephant in the room is the (Israeli) occupation itself,” she told a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Several thousand Palestinians demonstrated in the Gaza Strip and burned posters of Trump and Netanyahu. “No to the conference of treason, no to the conference of shame” read one banner.
The chief of Islamist group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, criticized the plan as a ruse against the Palestinian people.
“This money must not come at the expense of our enduring rights, or at the expense of Jerusalem or the right of return or at the expense of sovereignty and resistance,” he said.
U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates discreetly support the plan, but several Arab states stayed away from the conference while others including Jordan and Egypt, the two Arab nations that have reached peace with Israel, sent deputy ministers.
The Lebanese government and parliament both oppose the U.S. plan, Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said on Wednesday.
The foreign minister of Bahrain, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based, said the plan was an “opportunity not to be missed”.
He reiterated the need for a two-state solution, which has underpinned every peace plan for decades, but Trump’s team has consistently refused to commit to it.
“I think if we take this matter seriously it could be a very important game-changer,” Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa told Israeli public broadcaster Kan, in English.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a close Trump ally, has said Israel was open to the economic proposals.
The presence of Sunni Muslim Gulf states in Manama showed they want to encourage closer ties to Israelis – with whom they share a common foe in Shi’ite Iran – that have largely been under the table, said David Makovsky, a U.S.-based Middle East expert attending the event.
“(But) it’s clear they won’t bypass the Palestinians and do anything they don’t want,” he told Reuters.
The event is taking place amid high tensions between Tehran on the one hand and Washington and its Gulf allies on the other.
Palestinians poured scorn on a $50 billion economic formula launched by the Trump administration for Israeli-Palestinian peace as the United States sought on Wednesday to win support for the plan as a foundation to ending the decades-old conflict.
Neither the Israeli nor Palestinian governments are attending the international meeting in Bahrain, orchestrated by U.S. President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The Palestinians and many other Arabs dismiss Kushner’s plan as pointless without a political solution based on the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Senior Palestine Liberation Organisation official Hanan Ashrawi said on Wednesday the Manama conference was ” quite disingenuous”.
“It is totally divorced from reality. The elephant in the room is the (Israeli) occupation itself,” she told a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Several thousand Palestinians demonstrated in the Gaza Strip and burned posters of Trump and Netanyahu. “No to the conference of treason, no to the conference of shame” read one banner.
The chief of Islamist group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, criticized the plan as a ruse against the Palestinian people.
“This money must not come at the expense of our enduring rights, or at the expense of Jerusalem or the right of return or at the expense of sovereignty and resistance,” he said.
U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates discreetly support the plan, but several Arab states stayed away from the conference while others including Jordan and Egypt, the two Arab nations that have reached peace with Israel, sent deputy ministers.
The Lebanese government and parliament both oppose the U.S. plan, Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said on Wednesday.
The foreign minister of Bahrain, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based, said the plan was an “opportunity not to be missed”.
He reiterated the need for a two-state solution, which has underpinned every peace plan for decades, but Trump’s team has consistently refused to commit to it.
“I think if we take this matter seriously it could be a very important game-changer,” Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa told Israeli public broadcaster Kan, in English.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a close Trump ally, has said Israel was open to the economic proposals.
The presence of Sunni Muslim Gulf states in Manama showed they want to encourage closer ties to Israelis – with whom they share a common foe in Shi’ite Iran – that have largely been under the table, said David Makovsky, a U.S.-based Middle East expert attending the event.
“(But) it’s clear they won’t bypass the Palestinians and do anything they don’t want,” he told Reuters.
The event is taking place amid high tensions between Tehran on the one hand and Washington and its Gulf allies on the other.
