Hawzah News Agency (Occupied Palestine) - US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, who is believed to be the architect of a recently proposed “peace plan” for Israel and Palestine, says he was “surprised almost to death” when Palestinians of all factions rejected the deal “merely because they had not negotiated it.”
“The Palestinians have a perfect track record of blowing every opportunity President Trump has offered them in the past,” said a visibly angry Kushner on CNN on Wednesday. “Still, I was surprised almost to death when their leaders dismissed the deal merely because they had not negotiated it!”
Kushner, who had no political or foreign policy record until he was named senior White House adviser when Trump took office in 2017, said he was “very well-informed” on the Israeli-Palestinian subject.
“I’ve read 25 books on it. They were so hard I’ve decided I will never read again,” he said. “I’ve also spoken to every leader in the region, I’ve spoken to everyone who’s been involved in this — well, except for the Palestinians — I was very tired from reading the books.”
Kushner said he had been expecting Palestinian gratitude for “all the effort Ivanka and I put into this,” referring to his wife Ivanka Trump, who is also a White House adviser.
“It took us three years to put almost everything — everything — Israel wanted in the deal. It was no Iran nuclear deal!” he said mockingly, referring to a multilateral nuclear agreement with Iran that Trump withdrew America from in 2018.
The peace plan was unveiled by Trump with much fanfare at the White House on Tuesday. He was flanked by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and no Palestinian leader during the unveiling ceremony, where Trump in a speech framed the agreement as a “win-win” and where dozens of US officials and a handful of foreign ambassadors frantically clapped their hands at every other sentence Trump said in the speech.
Kushner, who was present at the event, said he had been moved by all the applause.
“Obviously, I am still a little down because of the Palestinian rebuttal, but I will not let that in any way affect my determination to negotiate more deals like this in the future,” he said, as he blinked seemingly uncontrollably in one eye.