President Donald Trump’s 38-year-old son-in-law Jared Kushner hinted at political concessions to Palestinians after spending a week in Bahrain, getting a $50 billion commitment for Palestinian economic development. Palestinian Liberation Organization [PLO] Chairman 83-year-old Mahmoud Abbas broke off diplomatic relations with the Trump administration when Trump announced Dec. 6, 2017 that he would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Trump wanted at the time to encourage Abbas to return to the peace table, showing no openness to East Jerusalem becoming the capital of a future Palestinian state. Abbas was so furious at Trump recognizing the obvious that he broke off diplomatic relations. Kushner’s recent attempts to jumpstart the Mideast peace process have been rejected by Abbas and his Hamas counterparts currently ruling the Gaza Strip.
Abbas has tried-but-failed to assert control over Gaza, rejected strongly by Hamas’s leader in exile Ismail Haniyech. Abbas rejects of the Trump White House as an honest peace broker between Israelis and Palestinians, resulting in Trump canceling U.S. funding to the U.N.’s Palestinian Refugee Organization. Abbas thinks he can outlast Trump, waiting for the next Democrat to manage the peace process. But when you consider that Kushner’s offering a massive economic program together with concessions for Palestinian refugees, you’d think Abbas would jump at the opportunity. Unlike Hamas who’s at war with Israel, Abbas pretends he wants a peaceful two-state solution. With security concerns facing Israel, 69-year-old Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in no position to honor obsolete U.N. Resolutions, including 242, demanding Israel return to the pre-1967 War borders.
Hamas’s Gaza rulers routinely tell residents that Hamas will one day conquer Israel returning back land lost in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. Since 1967, every U.N. Resolution demanded Israel return spoils of the Six-Day-War, including Egypt’s Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula, Jordan’s West Bank and East Jerusalem and Syria’s Golan Heights. Israel’s late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon returned the Gaza Strip to the PLO Aug. 16, 2005, hoping for peace but getting four wars with Hamas. Hamas still thinks it can shoot rockets into Israel, forcing the Jewish State to surrender the State of Israel to displaced Palestinians. Palestinians, including Abbas’s predecessor the late PLO founder Yasser Arafat, want to conquer Israel but lack the military resources to pull it off. Palestinians last-and-old attempt failed June 10, 1967 when six Arab armies, including Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestinian failed defeat Israel.
Whatever sympathies for Palestinians exist in the Arab World, none are anymore willing to go to war against Israel. Israel’s military is light-year’s ahead than back in 1967, something Arab states understand. Every time Hamas goes to war with Israel, it results in catastrophic damage to the Gaza Strip, squandering billions in aid, generously given by the oil-rich Gulf States, including Saudi Arabia. Despite rejected by Abbas, Kushner has spent plenty of time-and-resources trying to get Gulf Arab states to buy in. Kushner said in Bahrain this week that he was open to dealing with the Palestinians refugee question but made no promises about returning to Israel’s sovereign territory. There are 1,890,000 Arabs living in Israel or about 20% of the population. Israel isn’t looking to add to that number. Kushner asked Palestinians to reconsider meeting with Trump at the White House.
Palestinians haven’t given up on the idea of conquering Israel, despite having no support from any Arab state. Whatever distrust exists between the White House and Abbas, Kushner’s made a good-faith effort to bring about a long-awaited peace. Abbas rejects the idea of dealing with the economic plan first, before deciding on the fate of refuges or the status of Jerusalem. If Abbas wants Trump to re-fund the U.N.’s Palestinian Refugee Agency, he needs to stop his boycott and return to the bargaining table. There’s zero guarantee that Trump won’t be reelected in 2020, kicking the peace process down the road for another four years. With polls conducted in Gaza and the West Bank showing that 90% of Palestinians don’t trust the Trump administration to broker a fair peace, it’s doubtful that Kushner’s proposals will gain any traction in the near future.
Kushner has spent considerable effort on behalf of the White House to advance the Mideast peace process. Abbas threw a fit when Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. It’s no accident that Israel’s parliament AKA Knesset has met in Jerusalem since 1949. Israel has done an commendable job of managing Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem and elsewhere, assuring that religious pilgrims remain safe making there way to the Holy Land. Trump wants Abbas to know that while he’s sensitive to Palestinian issues, the PLO or Hamas does not call the shots when it comes to the peace process. Spending too much time violently protesting the Israeli-Gaza border, Palestinians have watched their brothers martyred for Palestinians right-of-return, something Hamas and the PLO know won’t happen. Kushner calls his peace proposal practical, something that can bear fruit.
