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Kushner has been leading President Donald Trump's effort to develop a peace plan for Israelis and Palestinians.

After proposing a $60 billion aid package for the region last summer, he has yet to unveil a proposed political plan that gets at the thorniest issues in the decades-old conflict, with Netanyahu struggling to form a governing coalition.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Kushner would travel with his two main deputies, Avi Berkowitz and Brian Hook, to meet Netanyahu and Gantz.

They are not expected to release the political plan but want to get a sense of coalition building and where the effort stands, the official said.

While in the region Kushner will also attend an economic conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the official said.

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"Not a single community be uprooted, nor will I force out a single settler," Netanyahu said during a visit to Gush Etzion, a settlement bloc just south of Jerusalem.

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Netanyahu was scheduled to meet with US President Donald Trump's Senior Strategic Adviser Jared Kushner on Wednesday. Kushner was sent to the region to promote the economic component of the administration's peace plan, which was revealed in late June.

Speaking in Efrat,  a major Jewish community in Gush Etzion, Netanyahu said: "This is a place where one can see the past, observe the present and look into the future. We will not let a single community be uprooted, and Efrat will continue to thrive and build for eternity. Efrat and Gush Etzion are the gateway to Jerusalem. We withstood enormous pressure from the international community, and we did so because we were smart and acted together."

Netanyahu warned that if the Likud did not emerge victorious after the Sept. 17 election, the gains made in the settlement enterprise would be reversed. "It's us or them. There is the Left's way and there is our way, which transformed this country and built this land," Netanyahu said. "The only way to ensure the Right will continue to lead is to vote Likud and make it big. Only a big Likud can prevent a left-wing government and ensure a great future for the state of Israel."

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Nine in ten Palestinians do not believe or trust the US government's claim that its recently unveiled economic plan aims to improve their economic wellbeing, a poll published on Wednesday found.

President Donald Trump's administration presented the economic part of its Israeli-Palestinian peace proposal, dubbed "Peace to Prosperity," in the Bahraini capital of Manama on June 25-6.

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But the poll carried out by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research and the first since the Manama conference, found overwhelming distrust of Washington.

The Palestinians refused to participate in the conference, accusing the US of systematic pro-Israel bias, and this ultimately contributed to the decision not to invite any Israeli or Palestinian official, but businesspeople from both sides did attend.

POLL, 3/7/2019, i24NEWS from i24NEWS on Vimeo.

Ninety percent of the 1,200 people polled said they did not believe or trust Washington's claim that the Bahrain meetings aimed to improve Palestinians' economic conditions.

Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, who is leading the peace plan, said he is seeking to reach out to ordinary Palestinians, bypassing their leaders.

But the survey also found that 79% of the Palestinian population supported their leaders' boycott of the conference, while just 15% were opposed to that position.

More than three quarters said the US plan would not bring prosperity to the Palestinian economy, and some 75% of Palestinians wanted their leaders to outright reject the US plan.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

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The White House kicked off its bid for Israeli-Palestinian peace with the ambitious economic conference in Bahrain which it hopes will pave the way for a political resolution to the decades-long conflict.

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The event and proposal, however, have been met with lukewarm reception, with critics noting that the business-minded plan fails to address the most sensitive disputes at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We changed the conversation," Greenblatt told i24NEWS, shrugging off criticism. "Nobody can create a situation that doesn't include an economic package. What we heard from the investors is 'we can make this happen. This is an investable type of project if the political solution is there.'"

The envoy emphasized the need for Israelis to be involved in any peace deal, insisting that in order to create a successful Palestinian economy, there "needs to be a connection with the Israeli economy. And we think that can happen quickly now that we've released the economic portion."

Still, Greenblatt said the administration does not have a final timeline for the release of the political side of the US peace proposal, citing a "wrinkle" in its roll-out after a second Israeli election was called for September.

Palestinians with whom Greenblatt has been tasked with making peace have clashed often with the envoy, with senior Palestine Liberation Official Hanan Ashrawi labeling Greenblatt a "self-appointed advocate/apologist for Israel."

Calling the plan "dead on arrival," Palestinians have slammed the forthcoming US proposal as blatantly biased toward Israel, citing the transfer of the US Embassy to Jerusalem and the slashing of funds for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees as evidence that the plan will not meet their demands.

Speaking at the conference, US President Donald Trump's senior adviser Jared Kushner said that the White House did not intend to punish the Palestinians for their decision to boycott the Manama summit.

In an interview with Channel 13 and the Axios news site on Wednesday, Bahrain's Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa said the Palestinians had made a mistake by boycotting the economic conference in Manama.

In what was the first interview by a Gulf official with an Israeli media outlet, the king said he hoped that by sitting down with an Israeli journalist, he hoped to ease Middle East tensions by talking directly to the Israeli public.

"Israel is part of this heritage of this whole region historically. So the Jewish people have a place amongst us. So communication needs to be a prerequisite for solving all of the dispute. We should talk."

Of the Palestinians decision to skip the conference, he said, "It is always a mistake to miss an opportunity to achieve peace. … This was an opportunity that we wanted to see them here, but they chose not to come."

In a message to Ramallah, he added, "It will not be a good idea to shun the role of the US in the peace process."

Turning to Iran, the king called the Shiite Republic "a major threat to the security and stability of the region." He said Tehran was exacerbating the Middle East conflict by providing resources to its proxies there and emphasized that Israel had the right to act against Iranian forces inside Syria.

As for the recent spike in tensions between the US and Iran, he said Tehran was pushing for war with its recent attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman and drone attacks from Yemen, among other provocations.

"This regime only survives with aggression. Only survives with exporting the Revolution. Only survives by taking control. So I think the restraint of the US is very wise," he said.

Wrapping up the economic conference, Kushner said he was cautiously optimistic about the potential for the economic aspect of the plan to succeed.

Kushner said that many people he spoke with during the conference believe the US plan could be implemented if the conditions are right. He said ideas for moving forward on economic development would be examined in the coming days.

In fact, Arab finance ministers interviewed at the conference voiced support for the plan.

Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan said Riyadh would support "anything that brings prosperity to the region" and that he was "very optimistic" about the prospects of the plan.

Noting Saudi Arabia's support for the Palestinians, he said the conference had shown them there was an international commitment to bringing prosperity to the Palestinians.

The United Arab Emirates' finance minister, Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, was more direct in his assessment.

"We need to give this initiative a chance. In order for it to succeed, we need international institutions. If this is the only initiative on the table, we need to give it a chance. We supported the Palestinians over the past 15 years, in order to keep the issue on the table. But now we need to move forward," he said.

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Panelists at the two-day conference in Bahrain welcomed the proposal's ambitious investment and development goals, but warned it would fall short without good governance, rule of law and realistic prospects for lasting peace through a political vision, which they noted is missing from the initiative.

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Their views were aired as the Palestinians repeated their outright rejection of the "Peace to Prosperity" plan. The Palestinians have boycotted the Trump administration since December 2017, when it recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

The #Palestinian 'collaborators with the occupation', who attended the #BahrainWorkshop, will be 'seriously punished' in their business, ex-Palestinian minister Ashraf Al-Ajrami tells @YishaiFleisher https://t.co/np5AB45xyM pic.twitter.com/290DJVzzAN

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) June 26, 2019

Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund who participated in the conference, suggested that peace was the missing part of the proposal, which was put together by President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner.

The Palestinians have great economic potential that can only be fulfilled with serious reform and protections for investors that must include serious anti-corruption efforts, but those alone are not enough, Lagarde noted, stressing that a "satisfactory peace" is imperative for prosperity. "It's a matter of putting all the ingredients together," she said.

"Improving economic conditions and attracting lasting investment to the region depends ultimately on being able to reach a peace agreement," she said in a statement released later by the IMF.

Lagarde's comments appeared at odds with the views expressed by Kushner when he opened the conference on Tuesday and said an economic plan was "a necessary precondition to resolving what has been a previously unsolvable political situation."

"I think we're now seeing a situation in the Middle East where a lot of interests are
aligning between non-traditional allies."https://t.co/um1hYzOSQw

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) June 26, 2019

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who had a hand in earlier peacemaking efforts and has been supportive of Kushner's plan, also spoke of the need for the economic proposal to have a political component.

"Obviously, it isn't a substitute for the politics," Blair said in a conversation with Kushner. "There will be no economic peace. There will be a peace that has a political component and an economic component, but the economy can help the politics and the politics, of course, is necessary for the economy to flourish."

The only Palestinian on the agenda, Ashraf Jabari, downplayed the Palestinian Authority's rejection of the plan. He noted that it had not been formally invited to the conference but he said a Palestinian state was necessary for economic improvements.

"This is our objective: to have an independent state of Palestine," Jabari said. "The Palestinian people would like to be independent and we are sure that this will lead to the development of the Palestinian economy."

Kushner's proposal depends heavily on private sector investment in the West Bank, Gaza as well as Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, where it envisions creating a million new jobs, cutting Palestinian unemployment to single digits, doubling the Palestinian gross domestic product and reducing the Palestinian poverty rate by 50% through projects in the health care, education, power, water, tourism, transportation and agriculture sectors.

The plan acknowledges that its success hinges on the completion of a long-elusive Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

But that necessity was driven home by participants who sprinkled their comments with repeated references to "Palestine," a "country" and a "nation-state."

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The plan, spearheaded by Trump's son-in-law and senior strategic adviser Jared Kushner, calls for the creation of a global investment fund to boost the Palestinian and neighboring Arab state economies with some 179 infrastructure and business projects.

Shaul Arieli, a former Israeli peace negotiator, said many were not new.

"Most of the plans have already been presented under the Obama administration," said Arieli, now an analyst at the Economic Cooperation Foundation think tank that advocates for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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In an interview with Reuters, Kushner said the plan's authors had studied why previous peace efforts had failed in formulating a fresh initiative.

"We tried to take the good things they did and then come up with a new approach to try to bring this forward," he said.

The plan, presented in a slick 40-page document, aims to cut the Palestinian poverty rate in half and double the amount of drinkable water in the Palestinian territories but some of the ideas require Israeli agreement and have been knocking around for decades.

The Trump administration's decision to release the economic portion of its peace plan without any discussion of political solutions has prompted a mixture of derision and exasperation among Arab politicians and commentators.

However, Mohammad Abu Jayyab, a Palestinian economist in Gaza, said the plan might still work.

"Chances of it getting implemented are there: the Gulf money and the influential American policy and the regional satisfaction to achieve common interests," he said.

Gaza-west bank corridor, via Israel

Proposed projects include:

Under the plan, a proposed $5 billion transportation corridor would be built between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, crossing Israel.

Gaza and the West Bank are around 33 km (21 miles) apart at their closest point. However, they are divided not just by geography but by long-standing and bitter divisions between President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, whose power base is in the West Bank, and the PA's Islamist rival, Hamas, which controls Gaza.

A 47-kilometer "safe passage" through Israel between Gaza and Hebron in the West Bank was envisaged by interim peace deals in the 1990s. Proposals included railroads, tunnels, elevated roads and a monorail.

The plan also entails upgrading facilities at key crossing points along Gaza's border, including with Egypt. Citing security concerns, Egypt has often kept its Rafah crossing closed, cutting off Gaza's main gateway to the world.

Power plants

The plan proposes a $590 million upgrade to Gaza's sole power plant. The enclave has suffered for years from an unreliable electrical supply, with daily, prolonged blackouts the norm. Within a year of the project's implementation, Palestinians in Gaza would receive at least 16 hours of electricity per day.

Before the proposal's publication, Qatar was already in talks with Israeli officials about building a new power line from Israel to Gaza, which the Gulf nation would help fund. The new line would provide 100 megawatts to Gaza, which currently gets a total of 120 megawatts from Israel, short of the 500 megawatts to 600 megawatts that Palestinians say the blockaded enclave needs.

The plan also includes $1.2 billion in loans and private sector financing for gas-fired power plants in Hebron and Jenin in the West Bank.

The Palestine Investment Fund, which is the PA's sovereign fund, is the lead investor in an ongoing initiative to build a power plant in Jenin. PIF says the power plant requires $600 million in capital, which matches the figure quoted in the Trump team's proposal.

A cornerstone was laid for the project in late 2016 and PIF and its partners have issued bids for the plant's construction.  According to documents reviewed by Reuters, project shareholders will finance $180 million, with "$420 million from international development and finance institutions."

Even if the project is fully financed and built, it cannot be operated without a gas supply, which requires Israeli approval, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

Gaza desalination plant

The US plan calls for channeling "significant investments" into infrastructure to increase water supply in Gaza, including desalination facilities aiming to double the amount of potable water available to Palestinians, per capita, within five years.

The Palestinian Water Authority, in partnership with international institutions including the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, the Union for the Mediterranean, the Islamic Development Bank and World Bank, has already prepared a comprehensive and integrated investment program for the Gaza central desalination plant.

In 2018, the EU said it had received €456 million ($519 million) in international financial support for the project.

Work still has not been carried out, but the EC noted in April "substantial progress" in ongoing discussions between the PA and Israel on the entry of building materials to Gaza.

The Trump team's proposals include $1 billion in grants, loans and private sector financing for the development of a natural gas field offshore of Gaza. The gas field is currently fully-owned by PIF.

PIF estimates the field's development would cost $1 billion, which matches the figure quoted in the Trump team's proposal.

Plans to develop the field have been put off several times over the past decade due to Palestinian political disputes and conflict with Israel, as well as economic factors, analysts say.

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Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law and an architect of the White House's yet-to-be-released Middle East peace plan, told the "Axios on HBO" television program that it would be a "high bar" when asked if the Palestinians could expect to govern themselves.

The Palestinian leadership has boycotted a diplomatic effort that Trump has touted as the "deal of the century." Although Kushner has been drafting the plan for two years under a veil of secrecy, it is seen by Palestinian and some Arab officials as tilting heavily in Israel's favor and denying them a state of their own.

Kushner again avoided saying explicitly whether the plan would include a two-state solution, the bedrock of U.S. policy for decades, calling for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with its capital in east Jerusalem.

But he said: "I do think they should have self-determination. I'm going to leave the details until we come out with the actual plan."

The Palestinian Authority has said it will not attend a U.S.-sponsored investment conference in late June in Bahrain where the economic component is expected to be unveiled.

U.S. officials have been vague about the timing for releasing proposals for resolving the thorny political issues at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But experts are skeptical of the Trump administration's chances for success.

With Israel heading for a new election in September after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a government, uncertainty is expected to further delay the plan's rollout.

Asked whether he believed the Palestinians were capable of governing themselves without Israeli interference, Kushner said: "That's a very good question. That's one that we'll have to see. The hope is that they, over time, will become capable of governing."

The Palestinians, he said, "need to have a fair judicial system ... freedom of press, freedom of expression, tolerance for all religions" before Palestinian areas can become "investable."

Asked whether he understood why the Palestinians might not trust him, Kushner said: "I'm not here to be trusted" and that he believed the Palestinian people would judge the plan based on whether "they think this will allow them to have a pathway to a better life or not."

The Palestinian leadership has refused to deal with the Trump administration since late 2017 when the president decided to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv and recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered his assessment of the plan's prospects in a closed-door meeting with Jewish leaders last week, saying: "One might argue" that it is "unexecutable" and it might not "gain traction," according to an audio recording, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.

He expressed hope, however, that the deal was not simply dismissed out of hand, the Post reported.

When asked about the Pompeo recording, Trump said, "We're doing our best to help the Middle East to get a peace plan. I understand why [Pompeo] said that. Most people would say it can't be done. I think it can be done."

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"It's too bad what happened in Israel. It looked like a total win for Netanyahu [in the April 9 election]," Trump said. "And now they're back in the debate stage and they're back in the election stage," he continued.

Late Thursday the Knesset passed a bill to dissolve and hold early election on Sept. 17 after Netanyahu unsuccessfully tried to assemble a governing coalition and swear his fifth government. Netanyahu pushed for the dissolution to prevent the possibility that President Reuven Rivlin would tap someone else to form a government.

The election makes the Knesset term the shortest ever.

"We will win," Netanyahu, 69, vowed after the Knesset voted when the deadline expired.

Meanwhile, the White House team tasked with drafting the administration's peace plan, including his son-in-law and senior strategic adviser Jared Kushner, held talks with Netanyahu today in Jerusalem but made no public comment about a specific date for the release of the plan.

The group is in the Middle East to drum up support for what Kushner styles will be an economic conference in Bahrain next month whose aim is to encourage countries to invest in Palestinian infrastructure and the economy in the West Bank and Gaza.

Kushner's visit comes a day after he spoke with King Abdullah II in Amman, trying to gain the Jordanian king's support for the peace plan, which is expected to be unveiled soon.

"Even though we had a little event last night," Netanyahu said after meeting with Kushner. "That's not going to stop us – we're going to keep working together."

Netanyahu said he was going to work with the administration on achieving peace and prosperity in the region and that the "alliance between Israel and the United States has never been stronger."

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Kushner, Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt and U.S. Special Representative for Iran and Kushner aide Avi Berkowitz began their trip in Rabat, Morocco, and were to travel to Amman and Jerusalem, arriving in Israel on Thursday.

Kushner also will attend the Bilderberg conference in Montreux, Switzerland, where he is expected to be a speaker, at the end of the week and then will meet U.S. President Donald Trump in London when the latter makes a state visit there next week.

The trip is similar to the one that Kushner and Greenblatt took in February to Gulf states to drum up support for the economic portion of a Middle East peace plan they have been developing on behalf of Trump.

The official said one reason for this week's trip is to bolster support for a June 25-26 conference in Manama, Bahrain, in which Kushner is to unveil the first part of Trump's long-awaited Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.

The plan, touted by Trump as the "deal of the century," is to encourage investment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by Arab donor countries before grappling with thorny political issues at the heart of the conflict.

Palestinian leaders have been sharply critical of the effort.

"The Palestinian leadership has already categorically refused to take part, saying that the PLO will not surrender to anyone its exclusive rights to make crucial decisions regarding the realization of Palestinians' national aspirations," it said.

"The deal of the century or the deal of shame will go to hell, with God's will, and the economic project they are working on next month will go to hell too," Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said this week. "Whoever wants to solve the Palestinian issue must start with the political issue, not by selling the illusions of billions [of dollars]."

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have said they will participate, and a senior U.S. official said officials from Qatar have said privately their country was expected to attend as well.

"Dialogue with Israel is a positive thing," Anwar Gargash, the UAE's minister of state for foreign affairs, recently told journalists. "I think this is something that we need to do, but at the same time the dialogue with Israel doesn't mean that we don't disagree with them politically."

In a recent editorial, the editor in chief of a Saudi newspaper with close ties to the palace urged the Palestinians to give the Trump plan a chance.

"The Palestinians should negotiate hard, and then take what they can to secure a nation-state for future generations," Faisal Abbas wrote in the Arab News. "There is nothing to be gained from a refusal to come to the negotiating table."

In another important diplomatic breakthrough, the attendance of Qatar, which has been embroiled in a bitter dispute with Saudi Arabia, is a possible precursor of a broader reconciliation among Gulf rivals.

Beyond the Gulf, the plan appears to face skepticism.

Jordan is in an especially sensitive situation. A majority of its population has Palestinian roots, and the kingdom borders the West Bank, which the Palestinians want for a future state. Any perception that Jordan is selling out the interests of the Palestinians would be deeply unpopular and possibly even destabilizing.

Ahead of Kushner's arrival, Jordan's foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, indicated he is uncomfortable with the economy-first approach.

The official Petra news agency said that in a phone call with his Irish counterpart, Safadi stressed that "any economic plan to handle the consequences of the conflict can't be an alternative to a comprehensive political plan that aims at fulfilling the two-state solution."

"Safadi stressed that all efforts for solving the conflict need to begin from the fact that ending the occupation is the path for peace," the agency said.

Egypt, a key U.S. and Israeli ally that borders Gaza, also has not said whether it will attend. An Egyptian official said businessmen who do business with Israelis might take part in the conference as "individuals." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.

A source familiar with the planning said it appeared Egypt, Jordan and Oman, as well as the G7 countries, also would send representatives to the conference.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has repeatedly called for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

The European Union has not said whether it will attend the conference, while Russia, another key player in the region, late Tuesday called the meeting an attempt by Washington to enforce its views on the Middle East.

A statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry criticized what it called the United States' "stubborn desire to replace the task of achieving a comprehensive political settlement with a package of economic bonuses that dilutes the principle of two states for two peoples."

Meanwhile, as tensions across the Persian Gulf remain high, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton was visiting the UAE.

Bolton tweeted he had arrived in the Emirates for meetings on Wednesday "to discuss important and timely regional security matters."

America recently deployed an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf over threats from Tehran. The U.S. also pulled nonessential diplomats out of Iraq and sent hundreds of more troops to the region.

Meanwhile, Emirati officials allege four ships off their coast were sabotaged. Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have launched drone attacks on Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. pulled out of Iran's nuclear deal with world powers a year ago. Iran now says it too will begin backing away from the accord.

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The plan, which has been two years in the making, envisions large-scale investment and infrastructure work in the Palestinian territories. But the central political elements remain mostly unknown. The economic workshop, which is to be held June 25-26 in Bahrain, will not address the most contentious parts of the conflict: borders, the status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and Israel's security.

In a joint statement with Bahrain, the White House said that the workshop will give government, civil and business leaders a chance to gather support for economic initiatives and could be possible with a peace agreement.

A spokesman for Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon said: "We have not yet received an invitation."

The U.S. wants to ensure security for Israel and economic opportunity to improve the lives of Palestinians. The administration hopes that Arab countries will help bankroll economic incentives, such as infrastructure and industrial projects, to get Palestinians to buy into the plan. But with details and political aspects of the plan still under wraps, any commitments for economic development won't be easily attained.

"The Palestinian people, along with all people in the Middle East, deserve a future with dignity and the opportunity to better their lives," U.S. President Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner said in a statement on Sunday. "Economic progress can only be achieved with a solid economic vision and if the core political issues are resolved."

He said the summit was aimed at building "consensus around the best steps the international community can take to develop the foundation for a prosperous future" in the region, particularly for Palestinians.

"Economic progress can only be achieved with a solid economic vision and if the core political issues are resolved," he added.

Kushner and U.S. Special Envoy for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt have been leading efforts to write the plan, but so far, there's been no participation from the Palestinian side. The Palestinian Authority, which has complained that the White House favors Israel, severed ties with the Trump administration following several actions targeting them.

Trump closed the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Washington, saying that the Palestinians refused to engage in peace talks with Israel. The U.S. stopped funding the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, slashing hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for projects in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and cutting funding to hospitals in east Jerusalem. Trump also recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv.

The Palestinians demand that Israel fully withdraw from all territories it occupies. Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War, yet the Palestinians want those territories for a future state. They also seek the right of return to certain areas they claimed to have been displaced from as a result of Israel's founding and recognition of east Jerusalem as the capital of an independent Palestinian state. It's an open question as to whether the Palestinians will exchange some or all of their demands for the prospect of economic prosperity.

In an interview last month with The Associated Press, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh likened that to "financial blackmail, which we reject."

"Our position is clear: we will neither participate in the economic segment nor in the political segment of this deal," said PLO senior official Wasel Abu Youssef.

Kushner said it has been disheartening that the Palestinian leadership has attacked the plan before it has even been unveiled.

But a senior U.S. official said that several Palestinian business leaders "have shown a lot of interest" in the conference.

The conference would show the people of Gaza, which is controlled by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, that "there are donor countries around the world willing to come in and make investments," the official said.

A senior administration official told reporters that invitations to the workshop are being sent to individuals in the U.S., Europe, the Persian Gulf, the wider Arab world and "some" Palestinian business leaders. The Trump administration decided to roll out the economic and political parts of the plan separately, the official said, adding that there will be no discussion about the political aspects of the plan at the upcoming workshop.

The senior official said that the plan will focus on infrastructure, industry, empowering and investing in people, and government reforms "to make the area as investible as possible."

"We recognize that this needs to go hand in hand with the political plan, but this will be the first chance to roll out details of the economic plan," the official told the network, adding that the White House thinks "this will showcase the potential of the entire region."

"If there's peace, it will touch on not only the West Bank and Gaza but also Jordan, Lebanon, Israel and Egypt. The economies will become integrated," the official added.

"Think about how much money is spent on bullets right now. If it could be spent on infrastructure and human capital, think about how much better the region could be."

Earlier this month, Kushner insisted that the plan that he has helped craft is a very detailed, fresh approach and hopes it will stimulate discussion and lead to a breakthrough in solving the decades-old conflict. At a think tank in Washington, Kushner described it as an "in-depth operational document" not anchored to previous failed negotiations, high-level political concepts or stale arguments.

The Trump administration has sought to enlist support from Arab governments as well. The plan is likely to call for billions of dollars in financial backing for the Palestinians, mostly from oil-rich Gulf states, according to people informed about the discussions.

Saudi Arabia has assured Arab allies that it would not endorse any U.S. plan that fails to meet key Palestinian concerns.

Though the plan's authors insist that the exact contents are known only to a handful of insiders, Trump's aides have disclosed it will address the major political issues such as the status of Jerusalem.

They have said they expect Israelis and Palestinians to both be critical of some of the proposals.

Kushner has declined to say whether the plan includes a two-state solution, a central goal of other recent peace efforts that is widely endorsed internationally.

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