Kushner: We do not have to help the Palestinians

President Trump’s adviser and son-in-law: If the PA continues to criticize us, the aid will be stopped.

US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner criticized the Palestinian Arabs on Monday in an interview with the Al-Quds newspaper.

“The President made it clear to the Palestinians that the US does not have to help them. They were also told that if they continue to criticize our policy – the aid would stop, and so it was,” Kushner said.

He called on the Palestinian Arabs not to outright reject the so-called “Deal of the Century”, and claimed that it would benefit them in the future. “The Palestinians should remain optimistic about the ‘Deal of the Century,'” said Kushner.

In a separate interview with the Al Jazeera network, Kushner said that the economic workshop in Bahrain is considered to be a success because of the identity of its participants from the Arab world.

He noted that “the achievement of a compromise between Israel and the Palestinians cannot be based on the Arab peace initiative, but should be in the range between it and the Israeli position.”

The US administration will unveil the economic component of its peace plan at the Bahrain conference on Tuesday. The plan aims to raise more than $50 billion for the Palestinian Authority (PA) and create one million jobs for its residents within a decade.

The PA announced it would boycott the economic conference in Bahrain almost immediately after it was announced, saying that the conference would be a meaningless meeting that was part of a meaningless plan.

PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday that he was confident the Bahrain conference would fail.

“We are certain that the workshop in Manama will not be successful. We will not be slaves or servants for Greenblatt, Kushner and Friedman,” Abbas told journalists at his presidential office in Ramallah.

“We need the economic (support), the money and the assistance, but before everything there is a political solution. For America to turn the whole cause from a political issue into an economic one, we cannot accept this,” he added.