United States President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner has said that he is “ready to work” with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
In the interview with the Palestinian Al Quds newspaper, headlined “I am ready to work with President Abbas, if he wishes” and published in Arabic, Kushner told the Palestinian people that they “deserve to have a bright future” and that “now is the time for both the Israelis and Palestinians to strengthen their leaderships and re-focus them to encourage them to open up towards a solution, and not fear trying.”
Trump tasked a special team comprising Kushner, US Middle East Envoy Jason Greenblatt and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman to create a new Israel policy over the last year.
Although the White House has until now been cautious not to reveal details on the Trump administration’s plan, has been wide speculation and several media reports that it will demand the partition of the country into two separate states with international forces controlling ancient Jerusalem. While not a significant departure in substance from previous American plans, many fear that the difference will lie in Trump’s belief in his own ability to successfully force the policy on Israelis and Palestinians.
Kushner, Greenblatt and Friedman are widely viewed as Washington’s best options for lowering Israel’s guard as all are thought to be sympathetic to Israeli interests and have personal histories of supporting Jewish communities in the West Bank that could potentially face destruction if Washington’s long-time policy for partitioning the country were to be implemented.
Kushner did not “wish to talk about the details of the deal that we’re working on” in the interview but said it would be ready “soon.”
The interview was published after the White House confirmed that Kushner, Greenblatt and Friedman met Saturday in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud) “to continue their discussions that began on Friday.”
Kushner’s remarks to Al Quds, in what the paper billed as his first newspaper interview on the administration’s Middle East initiative, highlighted the Trump administration’s attempts to deliver a message directly to the Palestinian people, when their leaders have refused to meet with the US team.
Kushner emphasized the economic benefits of a deal, saying that he believed “we can attract large investments in the infrastructure from both the private and the public sectors” to improve the Palestinian economy.
Challenged on the assertion by an Abbas aide that the American plan was “a waste of time and is destined to fail,” Kushner said he believed that the Palestinian leadership said such things “because it’s afraid that we are going to publish our peaceful plan that will be liked by the Palestinian people.”
The Trump administration has been positioning all the parties for a successful implementation of his plan for partition. By moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in such an ostentatious and divisive manner that played in the international press as a major Israeli diplomatic triumph over the Palestinians, the president has fostered a political atmosphere in which Israel owes his administration a tremendous debt.
Trump has also frozen some $200 million in aid earmarked by the US federal budget for the Palestinian Authority. By diplomatically indebting Israel to his administration and beating the Palestinians into submission, Trump seems to believe he can succeed where his predecessors failed in pushing through Washington’s two-state agenda.
