(CNN) The White House announced Sunday afternoon the first part of its Middle East peace proposal, what officials are calling an economic "workshop" to encourage investing capital in the West Bank, Gaza, and the region, a senior administration official tells CNN.

The workshop will take place in Manama, Bahrain, on June 25 and 26, bringing together finance ministers with global and regional business leaders. The effort is being headed by Jared Kushner, the senior White House adviser and President's son-in-law, and White House Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, who have spent years developing the proposal along with the much stickier political component, which officials said would be announced later in the year.

Asked for comment, Kushner told CNN in a statement that "people are letting their grandfathers' conflict destroy their children's futures. This will present an exciting, realistic and viable pathway forward that does not currently exist."

The plan will discuss four major components the senior administration official said: infrastructure, industry, empowering and investing in people, and governance reforms "to make the area as investible as possible." Kushner is said to have modeled details of the economic proposal on what has worked in Poland, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea.

The economic plan will include a "combination of grant money, low interest loans and then also private capital," a second senior administration told reporters Sunday.

Read More </s> (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. will hold an economic workshop with the Kingdom of Bahrain as part of efforts to seek a Middle East peace agreement, the White House announced Sunday.

The “Peace to Prosperity” event will be held in Manama June 25-26 “to convene government, civil society, and business leaders to share ideas, discuss strategies, and galvanize support for potential economic investments and initiatives that could be made possible by a peace agreement,” the White House said in a statement.

The workshop will focus on an economic framework for the Palestinian people and region, including the potential for private-sector growth, the administration said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Niquette in Columbus at mniquette@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny </s> The White House has unveiled the first part of its Middle East peace proposal, which is being deemed as an economic "workshop" to encourage investing capital in the West Bank, Gaza, and the region, a senior administration official told CNN.

 

 The White announced on Sunday that the workshop will take place in Manama, Bahrain, on June 25 and 26, bringing together finance ministers with global and regional business leaders. 

 

 The effort is being headed by Jared Kushner, the senior White House adviser and President Donald Trump's son-in-law, and White House Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, who have spent years developing the proposal along with the much stickier political component, which officials said would be announced later in the year.

 

 Kushner told CNN on Sunday that "people are letting their grandfathers' conflict destroy their children's futures. This will present an exciting, realistic and viable pathway forward that does not currently exist".

 

 The senior administration official said that the plan will discuss four major components: infrastructure; industry; empowering and investing in people; and governance reforms "to make the area as investible as possible". 

 

 The economic plan will also include a "combination of grant money, low interest loans and then also private capital", the official said.

 

 The workshop however, will avoid political issues such as whether the Palestinians will get their own state; the status of Jerusalem; measures Israel takes in the name of security; and what should happen with Palestinians and their descendants who fled or were expelled from Israel around the time of the state's creation in 1948, he added. 

 

 Finance ministers, but not foreign ministers, will be invited along with delegations of business leaders.

 

 On Sunday afternoon, however, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, told CNN that the plan was "futile".

 

 "Any economic plan without political horizons will lead nowhere... Palestinians will not accept any proposals which do not include a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital."

 

 The decision on whether or not Palestinians would attend the workshop would be made by the leadership of Abbas, Abu Rudeineh said, adding that when a similar meeting was held in Washington in March 2018 to discuss ways of improving the economic and humanitarian situation facing Gazans, the Palestinians had chosen to stay away.



 Bank credit up 13.24% , deposits up 10% in FY19: RBI </s> The United States will hold an international economic "workshop" in Bahrain in late June to encourage investment in the Palestinian areas as the first part of President Donald Trump's coming Middle East peace plan, the White House says.

The conference will bring together government and business leaders to help jump-start the economic portion of the broader US peace initiative, which is also expected to include proposals for resolving thorny political issues at the heart of the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Trump has touted the coming plan as the "deal of the century" but Palestinian officials have rebuked the US effort, which they believe will be heavily biased in favour of Israel.

Trump's Middle East team, led by his son-in-law Jared Kushner and regional envoy Jason Greenblatt, appears intent on focusing initially on the potential economic benefits despite deep scepticism among experts that they can succeed where decades of US-backed efforts have failed.

"This will give hopefully the people in the region the potential to see what the economic opportunities could be if we can work out political issues that have held back the region for a long, long time," a senior Trump administration official said on Sunday.

The participants in the June 25-26 conference in Manama are expected to include representatives and business executives from Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the administration official said.

However, a second senior US official declined to say whether Israeli and Palestinian officials would take part.

US officials had said earlier the peace plan would be rolled out after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends in early June.

But the announcement of the investors workshop appears to set the stage for a sequenced release of the plan, starting with the economic plan in late June and later, at some time not yet clear, the political proposals. </s> The Trump administration yesterday announced an economic “workshop” in Bahrain in June, as the White House begins to roll out its so-called “peace plan” for Israel and the Palestinians.

As reported by CNN, the gathering is intended to “encourage investing capital in the West Bank, Gaza, and the region”, citing a senior administration official.

The workshop will take place in Manama, Bahrain, on 25 and 26 June, “bringing together finance ministers with global and regional business leaders”, the report revealed.

Senior White House adviser and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner told CNN that “people are letting their grandfathers’ conflict destroy their children’s futures. This will present an exciting, realistic and viable pathway forward that does not currently exist.”

The official who spoke to CNN said that the plan will have four main components: “infrastructure, industry, empowering and investing in people, and governance reforms”.

The economic plan will include a “combination of grant money, low-interest loans and then also private capital”, a second senior administration told reporters yesterday.

However, the workshop will intentionally avoid “political issues”, including Palestinian statehood, the status of Jerusalem, and Palestinian refugees. “Finance ministers, but not foreign ministers, will be invited along with delegations of business leaders,” CNN pointed out.

“We recognize that this needs to go hand in hand with the political plan, but this will be the first chance to roll out details of the economic plan,” the first official said.

According to CNN, “the official denied that the rollout was being done this way so as to present a vision of a more prosperous Palestinian territory so as to encourage greater concessions in any political talks down the line.”

“It’s tough to digest both the economic and political proposals at once, since they’re both very detailed proposals,” the official said.

Responding yesterday, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas’ spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh, told CNN that the plan is “futile”.

“Any economic plan without political horizons will lead nowhere,” he said, adding, “Palestinians will not accept any proposals which do not include a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

Other reports suggested that while the PA “is not expected to participate in the workshop”, a senior US official “said the White House invited a group of Palestinian businessmen and is expecting some of them to attend”.

A changing Middle East: Why the deal of the century will fail </s> WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Sunday announced the first stages of its peace plan rollout, confirming that it will host a “workshop” in Bahrain in late June to focus on directing more economic investment to the West Bank and Gaza.

The gathering — formally dubbed the “Peace to Prosperity” workshop — will take place on June 25-26 in Manama, when the Trump team indicated it will release the first portion of its ambitious and highly anticipated proposal to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“This workshop is a pivotal opportunity to convene government, civil society, and business leaders to share ideas, discuss strategies, and galvanize support for potential economic investments and initiatives that could be made possible by a peace agreement,” the White House said in a joint statement with the Kingdom of Bahrain.

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The summit, the statement added, will “facilitate discussions on an ambitious, achievable vision and framework for a prosperous future for the Palestinian people and the region, including enhancements to economic governance, development of human capital, and facilitation of rapid private-sector growth.”

The White House did not indicate which countries would attend the summit in Bahrain. According to CNN, finance ministers, rather than foreign ministers, will be invited to take part.

There was no immediate comment on the announcement from Israel or the Palestinians.

The Trump administration suggested the economic framework of the peace proposal would be debated before the resolution of core political issues, such as the question of Palestinian statehood.

White House Special Advisor Jared Kushner has already said that the team he is leading has refrained from even using the term “two-state solution.” The reason, he said, is that the term has different meanings to different people.

“Economic progress can only be achieved with a solid economic vision and if the core political issues are resolved,” Kushner said in a statement on Sunday. “We look forward to presenting our vision on ways to bridge the core political issues very soon.”

Kushner has said previously that the full contents of the plan will address all final-status issues, i.e., the major disputes to be resolved in negotiations, including borders, the status of Jerusalem, and what to do about Palestinian refugees.

An unnamed US official told CNN that the political aspects of the plan would be released at a later date.

“We recognize that this needs to go hand in hand with the political plan, but this will be the first chance to roll out details of the economic plan,” the official said.

“We think this will showcase the potential of the entire region,” the official added. “If there’s peace, it will touch on not only the West Bank and Gaza but also Jordan, Lebanon, Israel and Egypt. The economies will become integrated.”

“Think about how much money is spent on bullets right now,” said the official. “If it could be spent on infrastructure and human capital, think about how much better the region could be.”

Addressing all the outstanding issues on the political side, along with the White House’s economic vision for the Palestinians would make it “tough to digest,” said the official.

“It’s tough to digest both the economic and political proposals at once, since they’re both very detailed proposals,” the official said.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will attend the June confab, which the Trump administration said will include multiple business and political leaders throughout the region.

“This workshop will engage leaders from across the entire Middle East to promote economic growth and opportunity for the people in this important region,” Mnuchin said.

His Bahraini counterpart said the summit shows that the Trump administration was working with Arab countries in the Middle East to improve economic conditions.

“The ‘Peace to Prosperity’ workshop underscores the close strategic partnership between the Kingdom of Bahrain and the United States as well as the strong and shared interest in creating thriving economic opportunities that benefit the region,” said Bahrain’s Minister of Finance and National Economy Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa.

Recent reports have said that the administration is preparing to offer a peace deal that will not include the establishment of a Palestinian state, which would be a non-starter for not only the Palestinian Authority but the rest of the Arab world and international community.

In March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was looking into effectively annexing West Bank settlements, but wanted to coordinate the move with Washington.

US President Donald Trump has been criticized by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as favoring Israel over the Palestinians. Over the last three years, the president has moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem, cut aid to the Palestinians and United Nations Agencies that support the West Bank and Gaza, and recalled the Palestinian envoy to Washington.

In response, the Palestinians have refused to engage with Washington on diplomatic issues, and have preemptively dismissed the administration’s plan.

The rollout of the plan has been repeatedly delayed. Kushner said in March that the proposal would not be made public until after Israel forms a new government and the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which would put it at early June or later. </s> U.S. to encourage investment in Palestinian areas as first part of peace plan

The White House will unveil the first part of President Donald Trump’s long-awaited Israeli-Palestinian peace plan when it holds an international conference in Bahrain in late June to encourage investment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, senior U.S. officials said on Sunday. </s> The workshop will take place in Manama, Bahrain, on June 25 and 26, bringing together finance ministers with global and regional business leaders. The effort is being headed by Jared Kushner, the senior White House adviser and President's son-in-law, and White House Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, who have spent years developing the proposal along with the much stickier political component, which officials said would be announced later in the year.

Asked for comment, Kushner told CNN in a statement that "people are letting their grandfathers' conflict destroy their children's futures. This will present an exciting, realistic and viable pathway forward that does not currently exist."

The plan will discuss four major components the senior administration official said: infrastructure, industry, empowering and investing in people, and governance reforms "to make the area as investible as possible." Kushner is said to have modeled details of the economic proposal on what has worked in Poland, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea.

The workshop will attempt to studiously avoid the many political issues that have made peace so elusive for so long: issues such as whether the Palestinians will get their own state, the status of Jerusalem, measures Israel takes in the name of security, and what should happen with Palestinians and their descendants who fled or were expelled from Israel around the time of the state's creation in 1948. Finance ministers, but not foreign ministers, will be invited along with delegations of business leaders.

"We recognize that this needs to go hand in hand with the political plan, but this will be the first chance to roll out details of the economic plan," the official said, adding that this will be an opportunity to show Palestinians, Jordanians, Israelis and the Lebanese that "CEOs care about them and want to be investing in the area." Kushner is calling the event a "workshop" rather than a summit, the official said, because he is relying on feedback to the proposal from the many speakers and other participants invited, including from the Palestinian territories. "We think this will showcase the potential of the entire region," the official said. "If there's peace, it will touch on not only the West Bank and Gaza but also Jordan, Lebanon, Israel and Egypt. The economies will become integrated." "Think about how much money is spent on bullets right now," said the official. "If it could be spent on infrastructure and human capital, think about how much better the region could be." The official denied that the rollout was being done this way so as to present a vision of a more prosperous Palestinian territory so as to encourage greater concessions in any political talks down the line. "It's tough to digest both the economic and political proposals at once, since they're both very detailed proposals," the official said. Palestinian and other Arab leaders have previously expressed skepticism about Kushner's plan, given how staunchly the Trump administration has supported Israel and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv and recognizing Israel's claim to the Golan Heights , while suspending funding for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees </s> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House will unveil the first part of President Donald Trump’s long-awaited Israeli-Palestinian peace plan when it holds an international conference in Bahrain in late June to encourage investment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, senior U.S. officials said on Sunday.

The “economic workshop” will bring together government officials and business leaders in an effort to jump-start the economic portion of the peace initiative, which is also expected to include proposals for resolving thorny political issues at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the officials said.

Trump has touted the coming plan as the “deal of the century,” but Palestinian officials have rebuked the U.S. effort, which they believe will be heavily biased in favor of Israel.

Trump’s Middle East team, led by his son-in-law Jared Kushner and regional envoy Jason Greenblatt, appears intent on focusing initially on potential economic benefits, despite deep skepticism among experts that they can succeed where decades of U.S.-backed efforts have failed.

“We think this is an opportunity to take the economic plan that we’ve worked on for a long time now and present it in the region,” a senior Trump administration official said.

The participants in the June 25-26 conference in Manama, the first phase of the peace plan’s rollout, are expected to include representatives and business executives from Europe, the Middle East and Asia, including some finance ministers, the administration official said.

A second U.S. official declined to say whether Israeli and Palestinian officials were likely to take part.

“Our position is clear: we will neither participate in the economic segment nor in the political segment of this deal,” said PLO senior official Wasel Abu Youssef.

The Palestinian Authority has boycotted the U.S. peace effort since late 2017 when Trump decided to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, reversing decades of U.S. policy.

But the senior U.S. official said several Palestinian business leaders “have shown a lot of interest” in the conference.

A spokesman for Israeli Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon said: “We have not yet received an invitation.”

U.S. officials had said earlier the peace plan would be rolled out after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends in early June. But the announcement of the investors workshop appears to set the stage for a sequenced release of the plan, starting with the economic plan, and later, at some time not yet clear, the political proposals.

The senior U.S. official said the conference would show the people of Gaza, which is controlled by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, that “there are donor countries around the world willing to come in and make investments.”

The Trump administration has sought to enlist support from Arab governments. The plan is likely to call for billions of dollars in financial backing for the Palestinians, mostly from oil-rich Gulf states, according to people informed about the discussions.

Saudi Arabia has assured Arab allies it would not endorse any U.S. plan that fails to meet key Palestinian concerns.

Though the plan’s authors insist the exact contents are known only to a handful of insiders, Trump’s aides have disclosed it will address the major political issues such as the status of Jerusalem.

They have said they expect Israelis and Palestinians will both be critical of some of the proposals.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told a recent meeting at the United Nations attended by Greenblatt that the United States seemed to be crafting a plan for a Palestinian surrender to Israel and insisted “there’s no amount of money that can make it acceptable.”

Chief among the Palestinians’ concerns is whether the plan will meet their core demand of calling for them to have an independent state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip — territory Israel captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Kushner has declined to say whether the plan includes a two-state solution, a central goal of other recent peace efforts that is widely endorsed internationally.
The White House is expected to announce the first part of their Middle East peace proposal in what officials are calling an economic "workshop" to encourage investing capital in the West Bank, Gaza, and the region. The workshop is expected to happen on June 25 and 26 in Manama, Bahrain.