The US has killed hopes of a Palestinian state, even as it opened a conference aimed at Middle East peace.
Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, yesterday scrapped American support for the “two-state solution” that has underpinned negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians for decades.
At the opening of a “Peace to Prosperity Workshop” for the Palestinian economy in Bahrain, Mr Kushner said US support for the longstanding Arab Peace Initiative and for Palestinian statehood was dead.
“I think we all have to recognise that if there ever is a deal, it’s not going to be along the lines of the Arab Peace Initiative,” he told TV station Al Jazeera. “It will be somewhere between the initiative and the Israeli position.”
The initiative was sponsored by Saudi Arabia as a potential basis for recognition of Israel by the Arab world and envisaged two states, one Israeli and one Palestinian, following the borders established before the Six-Day War in 1967. It foresaw Jerusalem as the twin capital of both states, with the Israelis in the west and Palestinians in the east, and a deal to allow a “right of return” for Palestinian refugees.
Thousands of Palestinians were rallying outside a UN compound in the Gaza Strip last night to protest the White House-led conference. The demonstrators raised a black coffin daubed with the words “Bahrain conference to hell” and signs that said “We are not trading our rights for money”. Palestinians burned effigies of Mr Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The protesters chanted: “Kushner, Palestine is not for sale.”
Read the article by Richard Spencer in The Australian (from The Times).