If we didn’t know before, we certainly know now: Jared Kushner is an idealist. Like so many foreign policy visionaries before him, he has taken up the quixotic pursuit of Middle East peace, introducing an ambitious $50 billion economic plan that would bring together world business leaders to boost jobs, the economy, and the infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza.
The “peace to prosperity” plan, introduced in Bahrain this week, includes 179 infrastructure and business projects and is the “opportunity of the century,” according to Kushner, who has been negotiating the deal for two years.
“For a moment, imagine a new reality in the Middle East,” Kushner said. “Imagine a bustling commercial tourist center, in Gaza and the West Bank, where international businesses come together and thrive. Imagine the West Bank as a blossoming economy, full of entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists, and business leaders. Imagine people and goods flowing quickly and securely through the region as economies become more integrated and people more prosperous.”
Kushner’s plan is only one side of the coin, though. The “peace to prosperity” plan is the economic agenda, and it relies on a political strategy to see it through. This, of course, is where Kushner’s plan, like the others before it, will undoubtedly fall short.
The “peace to prosperity” plan relies in large part on neighboring Arab countries — Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia — to invest in and support economically troubled Palestinian territories over the next decade. The Trump administration also hopes that the wealthy Gulf states and allies in Europe and Asia will help foot the bill.
Kushner’s plan won’t make things worse. But, politically, it’s a naïve attempt at an inside-out solution, one that hopes to achieve regional peace by solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This kind of solution only works if both sides want to fix the problem. And Palestinian leaders have rejected and protested Kushner’s deal, arguing that it’s full of “abstract promises.” The Palestinians want a political solution, not an economic one. They want their territory, and Israel wants its sovereignty.
Kushner hopes to circumvent the political question by creating enough jobs and generating enough tourism. Perhaps then the region’s leaders will finally learn that growth is only possible with peace. But this is delusional. The Palestinians, along with most of the other Arab countries Kushner hopes to work with, can’t partner with Israel economically if they don’t accept its legitimacy as a nation. No amount of economic development will secure trust between peoples ideologically opposed.
Peace talks like Kushner’s are just for show. A lasting solution might one day surface. But not now. Permanent political peace requires the disregard of hundreds of years of resentment and strife in a region that has only known conflict.
As Irving Kristol once said, “Whom the gods would destroy, they first tempt to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
