The US administration’s peace plan will not be unveiled until June at the earliest, US President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner said Wednesday.
Kushner told some 100 foreign diplomats the plan will be rolled out after the new Israeli government is sworn in and following the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ends June 5.
He urged them to keep an “open mind,” according to a source cited by the Reuters news service.
“He said the plan will require concessions from both sides but won’t jeopardize the security of Israel,” Reuters quoted the source as saying.
“We will all have to look for reasonable compromises that will make peace achievable,” Kushner said.
Trump administration peace envoy Jason Greenblatt confirmed the report as “accurate.”
Kushner made the comments in a speech to diplomats at Blair House in Washington, near the White House.
Little is known about the long-awaited plan, though recent reports in the Washington Post and Guardian suggested it would not include full Palestinian statehood.
That is a likely deal-breaker for Palestinians, who were already not cooperating with Trump’s Middle East team following the US president’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017 and moving of the US embassy there in May 2018.
The new Palestinian Authority prime minister on Tuesday accused the United States of declaring “financial war” on his people and said an American peace plan purported to be in the works will be “born dead.”
In his first interview with the international media since taking office over the weekend, Mohammad Shtayyeh laid out plans to get through the financial crisis he has inherited and predicted that the international community, including US allies in the Arab world, would join the Palestinians in rejecting President Donald Trump’s expected peace plan.
“There are no partners in Palestine for Trump. There are no Arab partners for Trump and there are no European partners for Trump,” Shtayyeh said during a wide-ranging hour-long interview.
Despite the tensions with Israel and the US, Shtayyeh said the Palestinians remain committed to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on areas captured by Israel in the 1967 war. That includes establishing a capital in East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed and claims as part of its eternal capital.
The two-state solution has enjoyed overwhelming international support for the past two decades. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his hard-line political allies reject Palestinian independence.
Netanyahu secured another term in office in elections last week and is expected to form a new coalition with religious and nationalist parties that oppose the two-state solution. On the campaign trail, Netanyahu even raised the possibility of annexing Israeli settlements in the West Bank, a step that could extinguish any remaining hopes for an independent Palestine.
Netanyahu has received a boost from Trump, who has given Netanyahu a number of diplomatic gifts since taking office. Trump has recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the US Embassy to the holy city, slashed aid to the Palestinians and shuttered the Palestinian diplomatic office in Washington.
Shtayyeh said that after all of the US moves in favor of Israel, particularly the recognition of Jerusalem, there is nothing left to negotiate.
He said any proposal that ignores key Palestinian demands will be rejected by the international community. The European Union this week reiterated its call for peace talks aimed at establishing a Palestinian state.
“Where are we going to have the Palestinian state?” he asked. “We are not looking for an entity. We are looking for a sovereign state.”
“Palestinians are not interested in economic peace. We are interested in ending occupation,” he said. “Life cannot be enjoyed under occupation.”
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