US Unveils $50 Billion Palestinian Plan and Palestine rejects it
Washington (QNN)- The Trump administration on Saturday unveiled a $50 billion Palestinian investment and infrastructure proposal intended to be the economic engine to power its much-anticipated but still unreleased “deal of the century” Middle East peace plan.
The scheme calls for a mix of public and private financing and intends to create at least a million new jobs for Palestinians, as the White House claimed on its website ahead of a two-day workshop in Bahrain that is being held amid heavy skepticism about its viability by almost everyone except the US administration and ‘Israel’.
The Trump administration’s $50 billion Middle East economic plan calls for creation of a global investment fund to lift the Palestinian and neighbouring Arab state economies, according to U.S. officials and documents reviewed by Reuters.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday reiterated his rejection of the proposal and the conference.
The so-called “Peace to Prosperity” workshop on Tuesday and Wednesday will also take place amid heightened regional tensions over Iran that threaten to overshadow its goals.
Senior Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official Hanan Ashrawi said Kushner’s plans were “all abstract promises” and said only a political solution would solve the conflict.
Hamas was more direct, saying: “Palestine isn’t for sale”.
“We reject the ‘deal of the century’ and all its dimensions, the economic, the political and the security dimensions,” Hamas official Ismail Rudwan told Reuters.
“The issue of our Palestinian people is a nationalistic issue, it is the issue of a people who are seeking to be free from occupation. Palestine isn’t for sale, and it is not an issue for bargaining. Palestine is a sacred land and there is no option for the occupation except to leave,” he said.
