Priss Jawwy’s plan
Shallow Princess Ivanka’s shallow husband Shallow Prince Jared has a Plan for Peace in the Middle East, gleaned from his several years of experience renting overpriced apartments.
The Middle East Economic Plan, dubbed “Peace to Prosperity” is the brainchild of Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump. Its 136-pages read like a glossy magazine, with photos of children walking to school and smiling farmers adorning the document.
But the images come from USAID development projects that were stopped due to massive cuts imposed on the agency’s funding in the West Bank and Gaza.
Well…yes, but…the photos are meant to be of future children walking to school and smiling farmers. They’re not supposed to be documentation, they’re supposed to be inspiration. Like advertising! They don’t have to be true, they just have to motivate people to buy the product bullshit.
At Tuesday’s long-anticipated economic workshop in Manama, Bahrain, Kushner officially presented his plan as the “deal of the century.” The political part is set to follow, but no one actually knows when. It is not expected until after Israeli elections in September.
The project “Peace to Prosperity” is detailed in 40 pages, divided into three chapters. Some 96 pages summarize the programs, projects and statistics. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) described the plan as consisting of only “abstract promises.”
Which Prince Jared doesn’t have the power to deliver.
The first part of the plan outlines combatting corruption, opening up The West Bank and Gaza Strip to regional and global markets and connecting the two with a railway link. Yet Kushner’s proposal does not explain how something that has not happened for years will now materialize.
There are promises to strengthen the private sector and introduce 4G, LTE and 5G mobile networks. The latter doesn’t even exist yet in the US. The West Bank only acquired a 3G network in 2018 because the Israeli government finally allowed it, after many years of waiting.
According to Kushner’s vision, Gaza and the West Bank could, “just like Dubai and Singapore,” benefit from their strategic location to become a regional financial center.
But unlike the Palestinian territories, Dubai and Singapore have airports. The plan, instead, is to expand airports in neighboring Lebanon and Jordan.
Tsss, Deutsch Welle is being so literal. These are dreams, plans, slogans, aspirational fantasies. Get with the program!
Education is another theme in the proposal, which promises online education platforms and international exchanges.
But how Palestinians’ freedom of movement would be expanded and their travel restrictions loosened, remains to be seen. There are generations of people in the Gaza Strip who have never been allowed to leave the territory.
Kushner envisages investments in cultural institutions and a revamping of the health sector. But here too, there has been no indication of how to go about it.
What do they mean “how to go about it”? You just do it. Prince Jared says it and someone does it. Simple!
Although the economic plan is only meant to be implemented after a peace plan has been achieved, it is clear that Kushner’s vision does not include an independent Palestinian state.
US officials have already let it be known that the so-called two-state solution, which has been supported by numerous countries worldwide, has been rejected by the president’s son-in-law.
Why the president’s son-in-law has anything to do with it remains a mystery.
I suspect these two things will turn out to be mutually exclusive, especially if implemented by any member of the Trump family.
And I always find it amusing, in a sick sort of way, when Trumpistas talk about combating corruption. What they really want to say is combating fairness and justice, but corruption sells better, so they rebrand it as corruption. And it probably is, to them, because being fair to other people might mean only one scoop for Donald and it might mean that Jared would have to have apartment houses you were pretty sure wouldn’t fall down.
They don’t really need to have an independent state; they just need full citizenship within Israel itself… But oh no then there wouldn’t be a Jewish state and for some reason it’s not seen as strange that a single religious group should have its own country…
Apparently the Palestinians have already rejected this. They want a solution to the state problem first, before anything else. Pipsqueak Kushner doesn’t seem to understand that he can’t just force his “solution” onto them.
Like Vatican City. Which, by the way, I believe is the most sex-skewed country in the world. with 95 men for every woman.
Palestinians rejected the outline of this from the very beginning. The real mystery is why the Israelis have not quietly steered this into nowhere, it is plainly DOA and was always going to be. Kushner is in so far over his head as to make American diplomacy a laughing stock – probably for decades – but I would have thought the Israelis are in too dangerous of a neighbourhood to indulge Trump like this. This is just so transparently bad faith that it risks the quiet rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia plus the Gulf states.
This is all for show though. The Israelis are also not present (not invited by the USA because of the Palestinian boycott). Most countries attending haven’t sent anyone important. In short, this is the USA putting on a show because they have promised BIG THINGS and everyone else indulging them so they don’t throw a tantrum.
James @3, Kushner almost certainly sincerely believes he can get people on board waving promises of future money around. After all, that’s what works for him and those he has worked with all his life. He can’t put himself in the head space of people motivated by non-monetary issues.
BKiSA @ 2 – Well it is seen as strange by some that a single religious group should have its own country – that’s one reason not all Jews are Zionists. Then again there are quite a few countries where a single religion is mandated in the constitution or The Unwritten Law or whatever. Ireland until quite recently, for one, Saudi Arabia for another, Pakistan for another.
BKiSA, it’s not strange because God pinky-promised the land too the people of Moses. It’s in the Torah so it’s legally binding or something.
AoS, I was shocked when I first read that justification for placing Israel in the exact spot it is, and displacing the former inhabitants. Not that someone would make it, of course, but that so many people seemed to accept it. This is their land because God gave it to them in a book written by their co-religionists in the past. They can’t point us to any solid evidence that God gave it to them, like something in his own hand signed by his own finger, but only in a book that they wrote and continue to promulgate.
What if I found an ancient work that stated God promised me the land that is now Manhattan Island? How many people would accept that and boot off the current inhabitants so that I could do as I like with the island? Like, turn it into a giant wildlife refuge with right of return for any endangered species that were being mistreated in their own lands? Or give it back to the people who once owned it before the ancestors of the people now inhabiting the area cheated them out of it?
Yeah, I didn’t think so.