The United States said Saturday that its Middle East peace plan to be presented next week in Bahrain aims to raise more than $50 billion for the Palestinians and create one million jobs for them within a decade. But Palestinian officials dismissed the proposals unveiled by President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner for big money projects to form the first economic portion of the Trump administration's long-awaited Middle East peace plan. 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. Unveiling details for the first time of its long-awaited peace initiative, President Donald Trump's administration said it was looking to attract major international investment to the Palestinians and to dramatically improve infrastructure and internal governance in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The conference Tuesday and Wednesday in Bahrain, led by Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, is the opening of the US government's delayed peace effort, which officials say will later include a political component. The White House cast the plan -- to be discussed in more detail in Bahrain with finance chiefs of Gulf Arab states -- as historic. "Peace to Prosperity represents the most ambitious and comprehensive international effort for the Palestinian people to date," the plan released by the White House said. "It has the ability to fundamentally transform the West Bank and Gaza and to open a new chapter in Palestinian history -- one defined, not by adversity and loss, but by freedom and dignity," it said. It said that the plan aimed to raise more than $50 billion over the next decade, with a goal of more than doubling Palestinian gross domestic product. The White House said the initiative had the power to transform the troubled Palestinian economy by creating more than one million jobs -- bringing the unemployment rate down to the single digits, in line with developed economies -- and reducing the poverty rate by 50 percent. In a step likely to outrage Palestinian leaders, it said that money would be administered by a multinational development bank as a way to ensure better governance and prevent corruption. Jason Greenblatt, a senior aide to Trump who crafted the peace plan alongside Kushner, said that the political component may come as late as November. However Ashrawi, a veteran Palestinian negotiator and member of the executive committee of the PLO, said only a political solution that ended Israel's occupation of the Palestinian Territories would solve the conflict. She said: "If they really care about the Palestinian economy they should start by lifting the siege of Gaza, stopping Israel stealing our money and our resources and our land and opening up our territorial waters, our air space and our borders so we can freely export and import." She said the Trump administration's stance was an "entirely wrong approach", adding: "They can end the occupation, which is the most basic requirement for prosperity. There can be no prosperity under occupation." — Agencies
