Trump Won’t Release Peace Plan Before Israeli Elections
Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu during the president’s visit to Israel in May 2017. Image by Getty
JERUSALEM (JTA) — It’ll be at least more three weeks before we see any of the Trump administration’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.
“We have decided that we will not be releasing the peace vision (or parts of it) prior to the Israeli election,” White House special Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt wrote in a tweet Wednesday.
Days earlier, President Donald Trump had told reporters on the sidelines of the G7 conference in France that while the whole plan would not be released before the Sept. 17 vote, they “may see what the deal looks like before the election.”
The plan, which has been shepherded by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, originally had been scheduled for release after a new Israeli government was in place following elections in April. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the winner of the spring vote, was unable to form a coalition and new elections were called unexpectedly.
The economic component of the plan was rolled out in June at an economic peace summit in Bahrain boycotted by the Palestinians. No Israeli officials were invited to the meeting.
The “Peace to Prosperity” plan calls for $50 billion in investments to transform the Palestinian economy and build democratic infrastructures, including making the Palestinian judiciary more independent and expanding Palestinian higher education.
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