The United States unveiled a $50 billion “Peace to Prosperity” plan that aims to create jobs for the Palestinian people and promote investment in the region.
“For too long the Palestinian people have been trapped in inefficient frameworks of the past,” Jared Kushner, assistant to President Trump, said June 22, when the White House released the plan. Kushner described it as “a framework for a brighter, more prosperous future for the Palestinian people.”
The plan is the focus of a June 25–26 workshop hosted with the Kingdom of Bahrain that will bring together regional governments, business leaders and civil society. Peace to Prosperity includes:
- An improved business environment to foster private sector growth and private investment.
- A focus on education and workforce training to give Palestinians the tools they need to succeed in the private sector.
- Addressing governance issues to improve property rights, strengthen the rule of law, create a reliable judiciary and guard against corruption.
The economic workshop is the first of a two-part U.S. plan. The second will address political issues and solutions and will be presented later this year, said Jason Greenblatt, President Trump’s special representative for international negotiations.
“We won’t pretend that reaching an agreement won’t require compromises from both sides,” Greenblatt says in a June 16 commentary. “And we won’t pretend that anyone other than the parties themselves have the right to make the compromises to achieve a peace agreement.”
The White House said, “Peace to Prosperity represents the most ambitious and comprehensive international effort for the Palestinian people to date. It has the ability to fundamentally transform the West Bank and Gaza and to open a new chapter in Palestinian history — one defined, not by adversity and loss, but by freedom and dignity.”
