White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, the architect of the unannounced Middle East peace plan, said that Palestinians deserve “self-determination,” but stopped short of backing Palestinian statehood and expressed uncertainty over their ability to govern themselves.
Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, told the “Axios on HBO” television program: “I do think they should have self-determination. I’m going to leave the details until we come out with the actual plan.”
Asked whether he believed the Palestinians were capable of governing themselves without Israeli interference, he replied: “That’s a very good question. That’s one that we’ll have to see. The hope is that they, over time, will become capable of governing.”
He said it would be a “high bar” when asked if the Palestinians could expect freedom from Israeli military and government interference.
Asked whether he understood why the Palestinians might not trust him, Kushner said: “I’m not here to be trusted” and that he believed the Palestinian people would judge the plan based on whether “they think this will allow them to have a pathway to a better life or not.”
The Palestinian leadership has boycotted a diplomatic effort that Trump has touted as the “deal of the century.” Although Kushner has been drafting the plan for two years under a veil of secrecy, it is seen by Palestinian and some Arab officials as tilting heavily in Israel’s favor and denying them a state of their own.
Kushner again avoided saying explicitly whether the plan would include a two-state solution, the bedrock of US policy for decades, calling for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with its capital in East Jerusalem.
The economic components of the proposal are to be unveiled at a conference in Bahrain on June 25-26. The Palestinian Authority has said it will not attend the event.
Another key broker in the peace process, the United Nations, says it will stay away from the Bahrain meeting. The body has passed several resolutions affirming a two-state solution to the conflict.
US officials have been vague about the timing for releasing proposals for resolving the thorny political issues at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But experts are skeptical of the Trump administration’s chances for success.
With Israel heading for new elections in September after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a government, uncertainty is expected to further delay the plan’s rollout.
The Palestinian leadership has refused to deal with the Trump administration since late 2017 when the president decided to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv and recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered his assessment of the plan’s prospects in a closed-door meeting with Jewish leaders last week, saying: “One might argue” that it is “unexecutable” and it might not “gain traction,” according to an audio recording, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.
His remarks show that even the plan's own backers expect the latest United States blueprint for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be met with deep skepticism.
"It may be rejected. Could be in the end, folks will say, 'It's not particularly original, it doesn't particularly work for me,' that is, 'It's got two good things and nine bad things, I'm out,'" the Post reported, citing an audio recording of the meeting it had obtained.
In the remarks delivered Tuesday to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Pompeo acknowledged the plan's perceived favoritism to Israel but hoped it would nonetheless be given a fair hearing.
"I get why people think this is going to be a deal that only the Israelis could love," he said, according to the Post. "I understand the perception of that. I hope everyone will just give the space to listen and let it settle in a little bit."
