Peace hope

The “Peace to Prosperity” workshop in the Kingdom was “a remarkable couple of days,” White House adviser Jared Kushner said yesterday as he was pressed by Israeli reporters demanding to know what consequences Palestinians would face for refusing to attend.

The conflict was a “solvable problem economically,” Kushner said. “The Palestinian people have been promised a lot of things over the years that have not come true, and I do want to show them that this is the plan, this is what could happen if there is a peace deal.” Kushner said he planned to follow up with investors to secure the funding. “Once we have that, we will roll into the political plan but we will do it with a context of people having the opportunity to digest what is possible.” It was a “constant theme” during the conference “that this is actually very doable,” he said.

“We have left the door open the whole time. One thing you have seen with me is I tend not to get emotional about transactions at the end of the day, I understand people have their domestic politics and people have different “I think what you have seen from us is that we have been very respectful, very straightforward. We have been very deliberate. We take actions, not weighing thepolitical consequences. We have been weighing what is right and wrong.” Kushner said US President Donald Trump had delivered on his promises to everyone, and would deliver on his promise to Palestinians. “President Trump has said he wants to help the Palestinians achieve a better future for themselves, and I hope they will take it very seriously that he has been trying to do that.

“Hopefully what you have seen in the last couple of days shows there has been a lot of effort on a very high level, a lot of resources devoted to it. “We are going to keep moving forward and we will put out our political plan at the right time. I do think that one of the things from today is that it will be very hard for people to go back to looking at this through a traditional lens. “I do think that hopefully we have helped people look at it a little bit differently, and that is one of our goals.”

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair told US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, that he remains a firm believer in a twostate solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict, but that it will only happen “when the economics and politics are right.” Speaking to Kushner at the Bahrain conference on Wednesday, Blair said the “Peace to Prosperity” plan was a good basis for doing the economics, but that a “deep cultural acceptance” on both the Israeli and Palestinian side was needed for the politics to work.  When asked by Kushner what he thinks will happen in Gaza, given that Hamas is more concerned about “the destruction” of Israel than the well being of its own citizens, Blair said that the situation in Gaza is “a tragedy.”

“One of the things that I’m pleased about with the (Peace to Prosperity) plan is that you do focus a lot on Gaza. I think what happens in Gaza is a tragedy. Before we get a long-term solution, I would like to see a short-term agreement where the violence can be halted. That we get the necessary construction going into Gaza,” Blair said.  A unified Palestinian leadership is desirable, the former British Prime Minister continued, but it needs to be unified around peace.  The Middle East, Blair said, has come to realise that it’s up to the Israelis and Palestinians to solve the conflict in the end.