Kushner: Palestinians have a perfect track record of blowing every opportunity

Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner on Tuesday admonished Palestinian Arabs not to blow their “big opportunity” to achieve peace with Israel.

“What you’ve seen today is that President Trump has 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,” Kushner said in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour after his father-in-law unveiled his “Deal of the Century”.

“It’s a big opportunity for the Palestinians and 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, stop posturing and do what’s best to try to make the Palestinians’ lives better,” he added.

Kushner told CNN the plan was open to negotiation, but he did not indicate how much Israel and the US are willing to concede.

“The terms are not final terms. This is an opening offer and if the Palestinians come — and they have some adjustments, they want to move the line, they want to change one of the sentences, they want to negotiate on different thing — there’ll be flexibility,” he explained.

Kushner noted that a conceptual map released by the White House as part of the plan, which designates new Israeli and Palestinian borders, would be finalized over the course of the next two to four months.

Trump’s proposal lays the groundwork for Israel to apply sovereignty to communities in Judea and Samaria and also foresees the establishment of a Palestinian state with limited sovereignty.

Under the proposal, Trump said Jerusalem “will remain Israel’s undivided capital,” but that a future Palestinian state would also have a “capital in east Jerusalem.”

The plan envisions a Palestinian capital in the Arab neighborhoods of eastern Jerusalem.

While Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who stood next to Trump as he unveiled the peace plan, welcomed the proposal, PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas was quick to reject it.