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Kushner urges Palestinians to take the “Opportunity of the Century”

Jared Kushner kicked off a ‘Peace to Prosperity’ two-day workshop in Bahrain with a speech on the plan to create a million new jobs in 10 years in the Palestinian region. (Screenshot/PtP YouTube)
Updated 26 June 2019
Frank Kane
RAY HANANIA
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Kushner urges Palestinians to take the “Opportunity of the Century”

  • Jared Kushner kicked off the two-day workshop with a speech on the plan to create a million new jobs in 10 years
  • Palestinians reject the initiative as it does not address the key political aspects of a peace deal
Updated 26 June 2019
Frank Kane RAY HANANIA

MANAMA: White House adviser Jared Kushner on Tuesday urged the Palestinians to take the “Opportunity of the Century” to have $50 billion pumped into the stagnant economy of the West Bank and Gaza.

“My direct message to the Palestinian people is that despite what those who have let you down in the past say, President Trump and America have not given up on you,” said Kushner, the US president’s son-in-law, opening the “Peace to Prosperity” conference in Bahrain.

Kusher repeated an earlier caveat that his economic plan would not go into operation until there was a political solution to the Palestinian issue. “To be clear, economic growth and prosperity for the Palestinian people are not possible without an enduring and fair political solution to the conflict — one that guarantees Israel’s security and respects the dignity of the Palestinian people,” he said.

However, he surprised his audience of global business leaders, economists and politicians by saying the Palestinians must accept the economic plan before a political solution could be reached.

“Agreeing on an economic pathway forward is a necessary condition to resolving the previously unsolvable political issues,” Kushner said.

He dismissed mockery of the US peace plan as the “Deal of the Century,” and offered an alternative. “This effort is better referred to as the Opportunity of the Century, if the leadership has the courage to pursue it,” he said.

“We see tremendous potential. What we have developed is the most comprehensive economic plan ever created specifically for the Palestinians, and the broader Middle East. We can turn this region from a victim of past conflicts into a model for commerce and advancement throughout the world.”

Prominent figures taking part in the two-day Bahrain conference include International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde, World Bank president David Malpass and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Among the business leaders in Manama for the conference was Mohamed Alabbar, chairman of the UAE property and leisure group Emaar. He was optimistic. “If there is a one percent chance we do something good here, we should get together and try,” he said.

Saudi Arabia indicated support on Tuesday for “international efforts aimed at improving prosperity, investment and economic growth in the region.”

But Riyadh restated that any peace deal should be based on the Saudi-led Arab peace initiative that has been the Arab consensus since 2002. It calls for a Palestinian state in territory not occupied by Israel before 1967, with a capital in East Jerusalem and refugees’ right of return.

******

AS IT HAPPENED: SEE HOW THE FIRST DAY UNFOLDED BELOW - All times local (GMT +2)

21:54 Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa met with the US delegation participating in the workshop at Al-Qudaibiya Palace.
The delegation included senior White House adviser Jared Kushner and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the Bahrain state news agency BNA said.
King Hamad also received a letter from US President Donald Trump, BNA said.

21:10: Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa met with the US delegation participating in the workshop.
The delegation included senior White House adviser Jared Kushner and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the Bahrain state news agency BNA said.
King Hamad also received a letter from US President Donald Trump, BNA said.

21:00: The full details of the economic plan can be downloaded here.

Kushner briefly went through the main points and some of the figures, including the four overarching aims. They are doubling GDP, creating 1 million jobs, reducing unemployment and reducing poverty.

20:05: More from Kushner's speech earlier. When he moved on to outline the economic plan that was published Saturday, he addressed the absence of Palestinian business leaders at the Bahrain conference.

"A lot of the leading Palestinian business people who we speak to wanted to be here tonight. They were told by the (Palestinian) authority not to come and because they rely on them for their livelihood it’s not a free market where they can make those distinctions."

20:00: Mohamed Alabbar, founder and chairman of the UAE’s Emaar Properties says the Palestinian cause is one close to the heart of all Arabs.

19:45: Some more details from Jared Kushner's speech. He painted a picture of what could be in Gaza and the West Bank:

"Imagine a new reality in the Middle East. Imagine a bustling commercial and tourist center in Gaza and the West Bank where international businesses come together and thrive. Imagine the West Bank as a blossoming economy, full of entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists and business leaders. Imagine people and goods flowing quickly and securely throughout the region as economics become more integrated and people more prosperous.

"This isn’t a stretch, this is actually the historical legacy of the Middle East, specifically of Gaza and the West Bank."

19:45: The first panel - The Time is Now: Building a Coalition for Middle East Prosperity - gets underway, hosted by Nik Gowing.

19:40: Kushner says Palestinian self-sufficiency is the key to helping them reach prosperity, and will be vital in helping create a better business environment climate in the Middle East as a whole...

19:30: Kushner is now summarizing what the "Opportunity of the Century" economic plan actually entails for the conference...

19:25: Kushner tells the conference that the US wants to see peace, security and prosperity for Palestinians, Israelis and all people around the world and that the US has not "given up" on the Palestinian people.

19:15: We are under way, and Jared Kushner is speaking...

18:45: We are still waiting for Jared Kushner's address, and we are being treated to some dramatic music and this holding screen on the live stream...stay tuned, we will have some action shortly...

18:20: Dignitaries for the conference are still arriving and registering and enjoying a welcome reception, so let’s take a look at what we can expect on tonight and tomorrow’s agenda…

- Donald Trump senior advisor Jared Kushner will deliver the opening remarks, with a panel discussion on what the US administration’s plans for “Middle East prosperity” will entail. The panel will be moderated by Nik Gowing, a UK-based professor, author & broadcaster and will include Mohamed Alabbar, founder and chairman of the UAE’s Emaar Properties as well as Stephen Schwarzman, chairman, CEO and co-founder of Blackstone.

- Everyone will then enjoy an opening night dinner.

- Tomorrow, the highlights will be a panel entitled “Unleashing Economic Potential” — looking at how trade and job creation can help Gaza, the West Bank and the surrounding region — which will include Mohammed Al-Sheikh, Minister of State, member of Council of Ministers and member of Council of Economic and Development Affairs in Saudi Arabia.

- Kushner will hold a conversation with former UK prime minister Tony Blair, while just before lunch Arab News’ editor-in-chief Faisal Abbas moderates a panel on how to empower the Palestinian people to reach their full potential.

Topics: Peace to Prosperity Workshop Manama - Bahrain Bahrain Palestine US Middle East Middle East peace

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Israel strikes south Beirut after Israeli evacuation call

Updated 52 min 28 sec ago
AFP
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Israel strikes south Beirut after Israeli evacuation call

  • Since Tuesday, Israel has carried out several strikes on the city’s southern suburbs
Updated 52 min 28 sec ago
AFP

BEIRUT: A strike hit the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut on Saturday, AFPTV footage showed, shortly after the Israeli army issued a new call to evacuate the area.
Since Tuesday, Israel has carried out several strikes on the city’s southern suburbs, a stronghold of Hezbollah.
AFPTV video showed three plumes of smoke rising over the buildings in the area on Saturday morning.
Shortly before the attack, Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X a call for residents of the Haret Hreik suburb to evacuate.
“You are close to facilities and interests belonging to Hezbollah, against which the Israeli military will be acting with force in the near future,” the post said in Arabic, identifying specific buildings and telling residents to move at least 500 meters away.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said “the enemy” carried out three air raids, including one near Haret Hreik.
“The first strike near Haret Hreik destroyed buildings and caused damage in the area,” it said.
Repeated Israeli air strikes on south Beirut have led to a mass exodus of civilians from the area, although some return during the day to check on their homes and businesses.
In southern Lebanon, Israel carried out several strikes on Friday night and early Saturday, according to NNA.
Overnight, Hezbollah also claimed two rocket attacks targeting the headquarters of an infantry battalion in northern Israel.
Since September 23, Israel has ramped up its air campaign in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops following almost a year of limited, cross-border exchanges begun by Hezbollah over the Gaza war.
Lebanese authorities say that more than 3,440 people have been killed since October last year, when Hezbollah and Israel began trading fire.
The conflict has cost Lebanon more than $5 billion in economic losses, with actual structural damage amounting to billions more, the World Bank said on Thursday.

Topics: War on Gaza Beirut Israel

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Hamas ready for ceasefire ‘immediately’ but Israel yet to offer ‘serious’ proposal

Updated 16 November 2024
Arab News
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Hamas ready for ceasefire ‘immediately’ but Israel yet to offer ‘serious’ proposal

  • Hamas official Basem Naim says Oct. 7 attack ‘an act of self defense’
  • ‘I have the right to live a free and dignified life,’ he tells Sky News
Updated 16 November 2024
Arab News

LONDON: A Hamas official has claimed that Israel has not put forward any “serious proposals” for a ceasefire since the assassination of its leader Ismail Haniyeh, despite the group being ready for one “immediately.”

Dr. Basem Naim told the Sky News show “The World With Yalda Hakim” that the last “well-defined, brokered deal” was put on the table between the two warring sides on July 2.

“It was discussed in all details and I think we were near to a ceasefire ... which can end this war, offer a permanent ceasefire and total withdrawal and prisoner exchange,” he said. “Unfortunately (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu preferred to go the other way.”

Naim urged the incoming Trump administration to do whatever necessary to help end the war.

He said Hamas does not regret its attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which left 1,200 people dead and prompted Israel’s invasion of Gaza that has killed in excess of 43,000 people and left hundreds of thousands injured.

Naim said Israel is guilty of “big massacres” in the Palestinian enclave, and when asked if Hamas bore responsibility as a result of the Oct. 7 attack, he called it “an act of self defense,” adding: “It’s exactly as if you’re accusing the victims for the crimes of the aggressor.”

He continued: “I’m a member of Hamas, but at the same time I’m an innocent Palestinian civilian because I have the right to live a free and dignified life and I have the right to defend myself, to defend my family.”

When asked if he regrets the Oct. 7 attack, Naim replied: “Do you believe that a prisoner who is knocking (on) the door or who is trying to get out of the prison, he has to regret his will to be? This is part of our dignity ... to defend ourselves, to defend our children.”

Topics: War on Gaza Pakistan Palestine

Italy protests to Israel over unexploded shell hitting Italian base in Lebanon

Updated 15 November 2024
Reuters
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Italy protests to Israel over unexploded shell hitting Italian base in Lebanon

  • Tajani said the safety of the soldiers in UNIFIL had to be ensured and stressed “the unacceptability” of the attacks
  • The Italian statement said Saar had “guaranteed an immediate investigation” into the shell incident
Updated 15 November 2024
Reuters

ROME: Italy on Friday said an unexploded artillery shell hit the base of the Italian contingent in the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon and Israel promised to investigate.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani spoke with Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar and protested Israeli attacks against its personnel and infrastructure in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, an Italian statement said.
Tajani said the safety of the soldiers in UNIFIL had to be ensured and stressed “the unacceptability” of the attacks.
The Italian statement said Saar had “guaranteed an immediate investigation” into the shell incident.
Established by a UN Security Council resolution in 2006, the 10,000-strong UN mission is stationed in southern Lebanon to monitor hostilities along the “blue line” separating Lebanon from Israel.
Since Israel launched a ground campaign in Lebanon against Hezbollah fighters at the end of September, UNIFIL has accused the Israel Defense Forces of deliberately attacking its bases, including by shooting at peacekeepers and destroying watch towers.

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon Lebanon UNIFIL Italy Israel

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Lebanon rescuer picks up ‘pieces’ of father after Israel strike

Updated 15 November 2024
AFP
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Lebanon rescuer picks up ‘pieces’ of father after Israel strike

  • Karkaba then rushed back to the bombed civil defense center to search for her fellow first responders under the rubble
  • Israel struck the center, the main civil defense facility in the eastern Baalbek area, while nearly 20 rescuers were still inside
Updated 15 November 2024
AFP

DOURIS, Lebanon: Suzanne Karkaba and her father Ali were both civil defense rescuers whose job was to save the injured and recover the dead in Lebanon’s war.
When an Israeli strike killed him on Thursday and it was his turn to be rescued, there wasn’t much left. She had to identify him by his fingers.
Karkaba then rushed back to the bombed civil defense center to search for her fellow first responders under the rubble.
Israel struck the center, the main civil defense facility in the eastern Baalbek area, while nearly 20 rescuers were still inside, said Samir Chakia, a local official with the agency.
At least 14 civil defense workers were killed, he said.
“My dad was sleeping here with them. He helped people and recovered bodies to return them to their families... But now it’s my turn to pick up the pieces of my dad,” Karkaba told AFP with tears in her eyes.
Unlike many first-responder facilities previously targeted during the war, this facility in Douris, on the edge of Baalbek city, was state-run and had no political affiliation.
Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Friday morning, dozens of rescuers and residents were still rummaging through the wreckage of the center. Two excavators pulled broken slabs of concrete, twisted metal bars and red tiles.
Wearing her civil defense uniform at the scene, Karkaba said she had been working around-the-clock since Israel ramped up its air raids on Lebanon’s east in late September.
“I don’t know who to grieve anymore, the (center’s) chief, my father, or my friends of 10 years,” Karkaba said, her braided hair flowing in the wind.
“I don’t have the heart to leave the center, to leave the smell of my father... I’ve lost a part of my soul.”
Beginning on September 23, Israel escalated its air raids mainly on Hezbollah strongholds in east and south Lebanon, as well as south Beirut after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges of fire.
A week later Israel sent in ground troops to southern Lebanon.
More than 150 rescuers, most of them affiliated with Hezbollah and its allies, have been killed in more than a year of clashes, according to health ministry figures from late October.
Friday morning, rescuers in Douris were still pulling body parts from the rubble, strewn with dozens of paper documents, while Lebanese army troops stood guard near the site.
Civil defense worker Mahmoud Issa was among those searching for friends in the rubble.
“Does it get worse than this kind of strike against rescue teams and medics? We are among the first to... save people. But now, we are targets,” he said.
On Thursday, Lebanon’s health ministry said more than 40 people had been killed in Israeli strikes on the country’s south and east.
The ministry reported two deadly Israeli raids on emergency facilities in less than two hours that day: the one near Baalbek, and another on the south that killed four Hezbollah-affiliated paramedics.
The ministry urged the international community to “put an end to these dangerous violations.”
More than 3,400 people have been killed in Lebanon since the clashes began last year, according to the ministry, the majority of them since late September.

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon Douris Baalbek Israel Lebanese Civil Defense

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Iran backs Lebanon in ceasefire talks, seeks end to ‘problems’

Updated 15 November 2024
Reuters
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Iran backs Lebanon in ceasefire talks, seeks end to ‘problems’

  • World powers say Lebanon ceasefire must be based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701
  • Israel demands the freedom to act should Hezbollah violate any agreement, which Lebanon has rejected
Updated 15 November 2024
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BEIRUT: Iran backs any decision taken by Lebanon in talks to secure a ceasefire with Israel, a senior Iranian official said on Friday, signalling Tehran wants to see an end to a conflict that has dealt heavy blows to its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.
Israel launched airstrikes in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, flattening buildings for a fourth consecutive day. Israel has stepped up its bombardment of the area this week, an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy toward a ceasefire.
Two senior Lebanese political sources told Reuters that the US ambassador to Lebanon had presented a draft ceasefire proposal to Lebanon’s parliament speaker Nabih Berri the previous day. Berri is endorsed by Hezbollah to negotiate and met the senior Iranian official Ali Larijani on Friday.
Asked at a news conference whether he had come to Beirut to undermine the US truce plan, Larijani said: “We are not looking to sabotage anything. We are after a solution to the problems.”
“We support in all circumstances the Lebanese government. Those who are disrupting are Netanyahu and his people,” Larijani added, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hezbollah was founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982, and has been armed and financed by Tehran.
A senior diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, assessed that more time was needed to get a ceasefire done but was hopeful it could be achieved.
The outgoing US administration appears keen to secure a ceasefire in Lebanon, even as efforts to end Israel’s related war in the Gaza Strip appear totally adrift.
World powers say a Lebanon ceasefire must be based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended a previous 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel. Its terms require Hezbollah to move weapons and fighters north of the Litani river, which runs some 20 km (30 miles) north of the border.
Israel demands the freedom to act should Hezbollah violate any agreement, which Lebanon has rejected.
In a meeting with Larijani, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati urged support for Lebanon’s position on implementing 1701 and called this a priority, along with halting the “Israeli aggression,” a statement from his office said.
Larijani stressed “that Iran supports any decision taken by the government, especially resolution 1701,” the statement said.
Israel launched its ground and air offensive against Hezbollah in late September after almost a year of cross-border hostilities in parallel with the Gaza war. It says it aims to secure the return home of tens of thousands of Israelis, forced to evacuate from northern Israel under Hezbollah fire.
Israel’s campaign has forced more than 1 million Lebanese to flee their homes, igniting a humanitarian crisis.

FLATTENED BUILDINGS
It has dealt Hezbollah serious blows, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other commanders. Hezbollah has kept up rocket attacks into Israel and its fighters have been battling Israeli troops in the south.
On Friday, Israeli airstrikes flattened five more buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs known as Dahiyeh. One of them was located near one of Beirut’s busiest traffic junctions, Tayouneh, in an area where Dahiyeh meets other parts of Beirut.
The sound of an incoming missile could be heard in footage showing the airstrike near Tayouneh. The targeted building turned into a cloud of rubble and debris which billowed into the adjacent Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. Ahead of the latest airstrikes, the Israeli military issued a warning on social media identifying buildings.
The European Union strongly condemned the killing of 12 paramedics in an Israeli strike near Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley on Thursday, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.
“Attacks on health care workers and facilities are a grave violation of international humanitarian law,” he wrote on X.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, told Reuters prospects for a ceasefire were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported that Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire with the aim of delivering an early foreign policy win to his ally US President-elect Donald Trump.
According to Lebanon’s health ministry, Israeli attacks have killed at least 3,386 people through Wednesday since Oct. 7, 2023, the vast majority of them since late September. It does not distinguish between civilian casualties and fighters.
Hezbollah attacks have killed about 100 civilians and soldiers in northern Israel, the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and southern Lebanon over the last year, according to Israel.

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon Lebanon Iran Israel Hezbollah

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