By now many of you have read news articles about the Bahrain summit where Kushner is trying to convince Arab countries to contribute $50 billion to implement the financial side of Kushner’s Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Some Arab countries are represented at the meeting but as expected the Palestinians are boycotting the meeting.
According to a meeting David Friedman, U.S. Ambassador to Israel, had yesterday with some prominent Israelis, the Kushner plan asks for the money to come only from Arab countries. No country has agreed to contribute even 1$, including the U.S. Of the $50 billion in requested contributions, $25 billion is supposed to go to Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt and $25 billion to the West Bank. The money paid to the 3 Arab countries is to permanently absorb the millions of Palestinian refugees residing in their countries so they are ineligible to return to either Israel or the West Bank in any eventual peace deal.
The $25 billion in investment allocated to the West Bank will actually be given to Israeli companies to expand their operations in the West Bank to provide employment opportunities to Palestinians. The Israeli minimum wage is the equivalent of $320/month but the deal calls for the Israeli companies not to be bound by any minimum wage. In effect allowing Israeli companies access to even cheaper wages by desperate Palestinians.
There is another dimension to this proposal – in effect a stealth annexation. As Israeli companies start building facilities all across the West Bank, along with some housing for the Jewish managers of these facilities there will be no part of the West Bank that is any longer exclusively Palestinian. Thus along with existing Jewish settlements, the pressure will build in Israel to finalize the annexation since they are in control of most of the territory.
The travel restrictions Israel imposes on Palestinians will remain in place. Thus if Palestinians want to work in the new Israeli facilities that are supposed to be built in the West Bank, the Palestinians will need Israeli permission and travel permits to get to work and back home. The same is true of the new train route between Gaza and the West Bank where travel is restricted to those who can get an Israeli permit to make the trip.
Needless to say, Israel is in favor of this new peace proposal since everything is stacked in their favor and the Palestinians hate it. Kushner’s proposal is a big bag of nothing. It doesn’t look like it will even be unveiled publically since it could prove embarrassing.