Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner opened the international workshop in Bahrain by urging Palestinians to think outside the"traditional box" for an economic pathway that he said was a precondition for peace.
Neither the Israeli nor Palestinian governments are attending the event, which the Palestinians and many other Arabs dismiss as pointless without a political solution. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a close Trump ally, said Israel was open to the proposal. The foreign minister of Bahrain, where the US Navy's Fifth Fleet is based, said the Kushner plan was an "opportunity not to be missed".
Washington hopes wealthy Gulf oil producers will bankroll the plan, which expects donor nations and investors to contribute $50 billion to Palestinian and neighbouring Arab state economies. On Tuesday, Riyadh reiterated that any peace deal should be based on a Saudi-led Arab peace initiative that calls for a Palestinian state drawn along borders which predate Israel's capture of territory in the 1967 Middle East war, as well as a capital in East Jerusalem and refugees' right of return - points rejected by Israel.
A Palestinian woman walks past closed shops during a general strike to protest against Bahrain's economic workshop for US Middle East peace plan, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, June 25, 2019. Lagarde said it was good that the plan identifies sectors for job creation. "It cannot be any kind of growth in the West Bank and Gaza. It needs to be job intensive."