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I'm reading the Kushner plan for economic peace—really, what else would I rather do on a beautiful Saturday evening in June?—and I'll tweet some thoughts on it as I go. whitehouse.gov/peacetoprosper…
Just to start, the website for the "Peace to Prosperity" plan includes a glossy photo of Palestinians walking past a USAID-funded school. Donald Trump cut USAID funding in the Palestinian territories.
"Additional investment will finance the development of a transportation corridor directly connecting the West Bank and Gaza." Israel has undertaken to do this for decades. Never happened because, guess what, it's complicated! Not just a matter of building a monorail.
The plan will "help the Palestinians leap a generation forward in digital services" with 5G technology. Great! Except it was only last year that Israel let the West Bank install 3G (which the rest of us got in the aughts), for reasons no one can adequately explain.
It goes on to suggest developing Gaza's coast by "drawing from examples like Beirut," which suggests that none of the plan's authors have ever actually seen the concrete monstrosity that is Beirut's coastline
"Just as Dubai and Singapore have benefited from their strategic locations and flourished as regional financial hubs, the West Bank and Gaza can ultimately develop into a regional trading center." Like Dubai or Singapore, just without an airport!
Kushner wants Palestine to achieve a World Bank Doing Business ranking of "75 or better." I sat with a Palestinian CEO last week who told me about having to transport his goods via donkeys when Israeli checkpoints closed the roads. That kind of stuff makes it hard to score well
I could go on but, again, Saturday night. Suffice it to say this is a pie-in-the-sky document that presupposes Israel will agree to everything, the occupation will stop massively distorting Palestine's economy, and all the other political considerations magically vanish.
Oh one other thing. There's a whole section on the importance of sacrosanct property rights in the Palestinian territories which I simply lack the words to comment on 😂
