Jared Kushner on President Trump’s Middle East Peace Plan

AMANPOUR:

I want to pick up on what the president said that he wanted to make this a win-win deal, including for the Palestinians. Can you tell me sort of lay out precisely where you think the win is for the Palestinians? The precise details [inaudible]

KUSHNER:
perfect. Well first of all I’d like to say that today was a big accomplishment for president Trump. Something that only he could have done. Uh, he met yesterday with prime minister Netanyahu but also with general Gans his opponent in a time of very divisive politics in Israel where they can’t agree on much. He brought the country together on what has been the most, most divisive issue, but he’s also done is we’ve released an 80 page detailed plan in the past plans you had the Arab peace initiative, which is a very good effort, which is about eight lines. And then you had past proposals, which were two to three pages of wordsmith documents, really talking about high principles. He also got Israel to agree for the first time to a state and he got Israel to agree to a map. So what you’ve seen today is that president Trump’s built a lot of trust with the state of Israel. He’s done a lot of great things that have made Israel more secure. And the relationship between America and Israel stronger. And what he’s been able to do today is deliver for the Palestinians a pathway to a state, a contiguous territory and conditions where they can earn their way to their independence, their dignity, all of these different things along with a $50 billion economic plan that could make them a very, very thriving a state in the future. So it’s a big opportunity for the Palestinians and you know, they have a perfect track record of blowing every opportunity they’ve had in their past, but perhaps maybe their leadership will read the details of it, a stop posturing and do what’s best to try to make the Palestinian people’s lives better.

AMANPOUR:
Jared, with respect. Obviously there have been Israeli prime ministers have also talked about a two state solution and a Palestinian state. I’m also American presidents and there have been maps. There’s the Oslo map, there’s the current map, and there’s the one that you have just revealed in this 80 page plan. Um, I guess, uh, I want to ask you because clearly the president himself, president Trump said, you know, we’ll wait to see what the Arab world says because what they say will be, you know, very important in terms of how this will play out. Um, it was noticeable that in, in the, in the white house, in the white house ceremony, there was the ambassadors from Oman, the UAE and Bahrain. Um, given that the Palestinians have rejected and the Jordanians have already, um, issued a statement, which I can read parts of it to you, where does this go next? What, what do you think is going to happen next? Since there has not been the fulsome support publicly from the heavyweights in the Arab world?

KUSHNER:
Yeah, I’ll be honest with you, it’s very difficult to do a remote interview with you where you’re going to assert all these different things as facts without giving me the chance to respond to things that are not correct.