ArabDigest.org: Deal of the [next] century

Greeenblatt visited the Western Wall and tweeted "Lots to pray for!!" The veteran Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat quipped "Now it is the deal of the next century".

Deal of the [next] century Summary: Kushner briefly visits Morocco and Jordan to boost the deal of the century. Netanyahu's failure to form a government may have put the kibosh on the timing if not the deal itself. Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jason Greenblatt, Middle East envoy, and Brian Hook, US special representative for Iran, visited Morocco, Jordan and Israel between 27 and 31 May. According to a White House official one reason for the trip was to bolster support for the 25/26 workshop in Manama at which Kushner is due to unveil the economic part of the "deal of the century". A State Department spokeswoman told reporters she wasn't sure what Hook's role is on the trip, but would get back to reporters with more details later. This rapid tour was presumably planned in the hope of harvesting some low hanging fruit, with the timing chosen to fit in with Kushner's attendance at the Bilderberg conference in Montreux which began yesterday 30 May (after which he will go to London for President Trump's state visit). The timing turned out to be unfortunate; the last days of Ramadan are not the best time for doing rapid business in a Muslim country, and the visit to Israel coincided with a major political crisis. Nothing of substance has been published about the visit to Morocco and most reports of the trip have simply ignored it. Kushner, and presumably his companions, attended an Iftar with King Muhammad VI on 28 May, according to the Moroccan press agency following talks [presumably while the King and his team were still fasting] "on strengthening the long-standing, solid and multidimensional strategic partnership between Morocco and the United States, as well as on developments in the North African and Middle East region." Some reports referred to a call for a sit-in in front of Parliament to protest against the deal of the century. According to the Jerusalem Post "Kushner and Greenblatt made a detour to Casablanca, where they visited the grave of Rabbi Haim Pinto, a noted 18th-century kabbalist. The US delegation was greeted by one of Pinto’s descendants, Rabbi David Chananya Pinto, with whom Kushner has reportedly had a relationship for a number of years. The Kushner family has reportedly financially backed Pinto’s Chevrat Pinto study center in Manhattan." Next stop Jordan, where King Abdullah II "stressed the necessity of intensifying all efforts to achieve a comprehensive and lasting peace on the basis of the two-state solution, which guarantees the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 4 June 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital, and living in peace and security alongside Israel." Jordanian officials also referred to their worries the plan could jettison the two state solution and challenge King Abdullah's custodianship of the holy places in Jerusalem, and to their concern about the US drive to dismantle UNRWA (Jordan has the largest concentration of UN registered Palestinian refugees). A small crowd of demonstrators at the US Embassy chanted “The deal of the century will not pass. Down with the US.” Neither Morocco nor Jordan has yet taken any public position on attendance or non-attendance at the Bahrain meeting, which according to the State Department is still planned for 25/26 June. In Israel the team met Benjamin Netanyahu, still Prime Minister but now facing a snap election on 17 September having failed to form a coalition cabinet in the time stipulated in the constitution. In brief joint remarks with Kushner, Netanyahu according to Reuters sought to play down the setback, referring only to “a little event last night” (but a Foreign Policy morning brief today 31 May is headed "Will Netanyahu survive?"). Former US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro told the Washington Post “I think the Trump peace plan is on ice indefinitely now. They already understood that they couldn’t roll out a peace plan during an Israeli election or government formation, so now the same logic is going to apply. Anything in the plan that has the slightest hint of a concession or a hard ask to Israel will be political dynamite during a campaign.” In a Bloomberg opinion article Husain Ibish asks “What could be more pointless than a 'Palestinian investment conference' without Palestinians? One without Israelis, as well.” Greeenblatt visited the Western Wall and tweeted "Lots to pray for!!" The veteran Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat quipped "Now it is the deal of the next century".