Trump Middle East Peace Plan Calls for $50 Billion in Investment

The Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan would marshal $50 billion in investments over 10 years for the Palestinian territories and neighbors Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon, administration officials said Saturday.

The economic portion of the peace plan is aimed at demonstrating what could be possible if the Israelis and Palestinians agree to the Trump administration’s yet-to-be revealed political plan on borders, refugees and security. Its targets include doubling the Palestinian GDP, slashing Palestinian unemployment rates of 17.6% in the West Bank and 52% in Gaza to nearly single digits, and cutting the Palestinian poverty rate by 50%.

The Trump administration is hosting a conference in Bahrain on Tuesday and Wednesday to solicit feedback for the blueprint, including from Gulf Arab states that the administration hopes will be among the biggest donors of economic aid.

The economic blueprint makes no mention of some of the most difficult issues of the conflict, including the status of refugees, Jerusalem, borders and security. Potential solutions for those issues won’t be revealed until November, after Israel’s elections in September.

“First lift the siege of Gaza, stop the Israeli theft of our land, resources & funds, give us our freedom of movement & control over our borders, airspace, territorial waters etc. Then watch us build a vibrant prosperous economy as a free & sovereign people,” Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian official, said on Twitter.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said Thursday that the group, which rules the Gaza Strip, would only accept humanitarian aid generated by a Trump administration peace effort if the assistance is unconditional.

The Israeli prime minister’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Co-chairman of the opposition Blue and White party Yair Lapid in a Facebook post called the plan “a very serious document to which there is no reason to oppose.” He added Israel needed to maintain security control in the West Bank and on Palestinian traffic between the West Bank and Gaza.

Releasing the economic plan months ahead of the political vision represented another unconventional step in the peace process for the Trump administration, which hasn’t said it would put forward a plan for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, a linchpin of U.S. policy in the region for decades.

“Our thought was that it was better to put the economic plan first. It’s less controversial. Let’s let people study it, give feedback. Let’s try to finalize if we can all agree on what that could look like in the event of a peace agreement,” President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser on the peace effort, Jared Kushner, said in an interview with Reuters published Saturday.

The blueprint didn’t make clear that it would lead to a state for the Palestinians, saying it would “empower the Palestinian people to build the society that they have aspired to establish for generations.”

With the absence of any serious talks on the horizon, it is unlikely that donor countries or investors will pledge money to the effort soon.

Middle Eastern officials have played down the significance of the conference in recent days, and the gathering has been further cast into doubt with the announcement last week that there would be no Israeli or Palestinian government representation. The White House said it decided to not invite the Israeli government to keep the focus away from politics after Palestinian officials said they would boycott the event.

Officials from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Morocco will be part of the gathering, as well as representatives from the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and businesspeople from Israel, the Palestinian territories, the Middle East and Europe. According to draft schedules, Colony Capital Chief Executive Thomas Barrack Jr. and Blackstone Group Chief Executive Stephen Schwarzman will be among those appearing on panels at the event.

The U.S. would place funds raised for the effort into a fund administered by a multinational development bank, according to the plan. The blueprint calls for funds for 179 economic-development projects, mostly in the West Bank and Gaza but also in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. They include water, power, tourism, medical facilities and telecommunications projects.

The blueprint pledges to open the West Bank and Gaza to regional and global markets by investing in transportation and infrastructure, providing financial and technical assistance at key crossing points and constructing new ports of entry. It also calls for funds to develop a transportation corridor directly connecting the West Bank and Gaza through a major road and a modern rail line.

The proposals seem out of reach for now. Palestinian government officials, who would need to be part of any peace discussion, have refused to talk to Trump administration officials for almost two years after the U.S. recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. They have repeatedly rejected the Bahrain conference and have urged Arab states to do the same.

And the World Bank has repeatedly concluded that Israeli constraints on movement, access and trade “continue to be the main impediment to economic growth in the Palestinian territories.”

Israelis are increasingly dismissive of two states. The violent Palestinian uprising known as the second intifada that followed the 1993 Oslo Accords convinced many Israelis that a broader pact with the Palestinians was untenable. A decade of stability and prosperity, as well as improved ties with Persian Gulf Arab neighbors, has convinced many that the status quo works.

Some officials involved in former peace efforts said no matter how ambitious the Trump blueprint is, it misses the key sticking point that has dogged years of negotiations.

“The problem is not the money to build the road; the problem is the Palestinian people don’t have freedom. They need a state. They need permission to make their own decisions,” said Hady Amr, who was the Obama administration’s deputy Israeli-Palestinian negotiations envoy from 2014 to 2017 and focused on economic issues.
Source: Dow Jones