BERITA SOLO - The Palestinian people on Wednesday (26/6) ridiculed the peace plan proposed by many US officials for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and said the framework for the impetus of trade and investment ignored their political aspirations for an independent state.
Gulf countries attending international meetings in Bahrain, spearheaded by the architect of the plan, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, gave him quality support.
But they also stressed that any peace settlement must be based on a two-state settlement, a Reuters report monitored in Jakarta on Thursday.
Kushner told reporters his team would broadcast political details in the plan, which is still a secret. "When we are ready," he added, "we will see what happens."
He said a peace agreement would occur when both parties were ready to say "yes". He admitted that they never got there.
Both the Palestinian and Israeli Governments did not send representatives to the meeting, which took place in the midst of several years of deadlock in other international efforts to resolve conflicts that have been going on for more than 70 years.
Senior Palestinian Liberation Organization official Hanan Ashrawi, speaking in Ramallah City, West Bank of the Jordan River, said the Manama conference was "very dishonest".
"It's really divorced from reality. The elephant in the room is the occupation (Israel) itself," Hanan Ashrawi said in a press conference.
Several thousand Palestinians demonstrated in the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas, and burned posters of US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "Not for a betrayal conference, not for a shameful conference," wrote one banner.
The head of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, condemned the plan as a fraud against the Palestinian people.
"This money may not come at the expense of our eternal rights, or at the expense of Jerusalem or the right to return or at the expense of sovereignty and resistance," he said.
Meanwhile the Bahraini foreign minister said the plan - which has been prepared for almost two years - was "an opportunity that cannot be separated".
He again expressed the need for a two-state settlement, which has underpinned every peace plan for decades, but Trump's team has continually refused to commit to it. (Reuters /AFP)
