Kushner to Invite Arab Leaders to Hear Peace Plan: Report
SOURCE: NEW YORK POST
BY: MARK MOORE
Top White House adviser and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner will reportedly invite Arab leaders to a planned peace summit at Camp David when he travels this week to the Middle East.
Kushner, assigned by the president to pull off the “deal of the century,” is visiting Israel and a number of Arab countries in the region to drum up support for the plan and will ask the leaders to hear Trump’s plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported on Wednesday.
But other Israeli newspapers quoted a senior White House official who denied a summit was in the works.
“No summit has currently been planned,” the official told the media outlets, adding that Kushner and his team would report back to the president, Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The Yedioth Ahronoth reported that the confab is expected to be held at Camp David, the presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains, before the general elections in Israel on Sept. 17 and will involve Trump outlining broad aspects of his plan without seeking any binding conditions.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer helped draft the proposal.
But the Israeli leader isn’t expected to be invited to the conference, the newspaper reported, over fears his presence could convince Arab leaders to stay away.
Palestinian leaders boycotted Kushner’s “Peace and Prosperity” conference in Bahrain in June that sparked protests in Gaza and the West Bank.
And the relationship between the Trump administration and Palestinian leadership has been chilly since the president moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and cut off $200 million in aid to Palestinians.
Kushner is expected to travel to Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates during his visit.
