(23 Jun 2019) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chided Palestinians for rejecting a US-brokered peace deal, as he and US National Security Adviser John Bolton toured the West Bank's Jordan Valley on Sunday.
Bolton is visiting Israel for three-way talks with his Israeli and Russian counterparts that are expected to focus on Iranian involvement in conflicts across the region, including in neighbouring Syria.
During the tour Netanyahu spoke about the US economic plan for Mideast peace and said Israel would "hear the American proposition, hear it fairly and with openness."
"I cannot understand how the Palestinians, before they've even heard the plan reject it outright. That's not the way to proceed," he said.
The $50 billion economic plan, published on Saturday, calls for massive infrastructure projects and job creation for Palestinians.
The plan calls for $27.5 billion of projects in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, areas claimed by the Palestinians for an independent state, with remaining funds allocated for Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon.
These countries either border the Palestinian territories or have large populations of Palestinian refugees.
The projects envisioned are in the healthcare, education, power, water, high-tech, tourism and agriculture sectors and include a land link through Israel between the West Bank and Gaza.
President Donald Trump's Mideast team, led by his senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, scheduled a "workshop" in the Gulf state of Bahrain on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the proposal. Already, expectations are low.
The Palestinians have rejected the proposal and will not be attending.
Accusing the U.S. of unfairly favouring Israel, the Palestinians say there can be no economic plan without a political horizon aimed at ending a half century of Israeli occupation.
There is no mention in the US proposal of Israel's occupation of the West Bank, which has repeatedly been singled out by the World Bank and other international bodies as the biggest drag on the area's economy.
It does not mention Hamas' control over Gaza or the Israel-Egyptian blockade, which, meant to contain Hamas, has also stifled the territory's economy, or the millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants scattered across the Middle East.
Nor does it refer to Israel's West Bank settlements, which sit on the 60% of the West Bank that is virtually off limits to Palestinian development.
It is not clear who will provide the hoped-for $50 billion, or where the rosy economic forecasts come from.
The entire plan hinges on a peace agreement, whose details the administration has said it will not propose before this fall at the earliest.
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