‘Ultimate deal’ will begin with economic workshop that does not address core disputes

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Peace efforts that ignore Palestinian political aspirations will fail, senior Palestinian officials have said, after the Trump administration announced an economic conference will take place next month as the first step of its long-awaited Middle East peace plan.

Washington said on Sunday that Bahrain had agreed to host a “Peace to Prosperity” workshop to discuss the potential economic incentives of its still-undisclosed plan, which Trump has promised over the last two years would be the “ultimate deal”.

A spokesman for the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, on Monday cast doubt over the Bahrain conference. “Any plan without a political horizon will not lead to peace,” Nabil Abu Rdeneh said.

US to hold Bahrain economic conference to launch Middle East peace plan Read more

Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian diplomat and negotiator, said: “All efforts to make the oppressor and the oppressed coexist are doomed to fail … This is not about improving living conditions under occupation but about reaching Palestine’s full potential by ending the Israeli occupation.”

The Palestinian prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, said his government was not informed of the investment conference in advance. “The cabinet wasn’t consulted about the reported workshop – neither over the content, nor the outcome, nor timing,” he said at a ministerial meeting where reporters were present.

He added: “We do not submit to blackmail and we don’t trade our political rights for money.”

The event on 25-26 June in Manama, the Bahraini capital, seeks to convene governments, civil society, and business leaders to “facilitate discussions on an ambitious, achievable vision and framework for a prosperous future for the Palestinian people”.

It will not address critical political disputes that have stalled previous attempts, including the final borders of a future Palestinian state, a decision over who controls Jerusalem and what happens to millions of Palestinian refugees.

Expectations for a successful agreement are low. The Palestinians, citing Trump’s pro-Israel bias, have pre-emptively rejected US mediation and it is not clear if a delegation will attend. Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has expressed open disdain for peace efforts and categorically ruled out a Palestinian state.

Palestinian leaders have accused the White House of trying to bully and bribe them with threats but also billions in investment promises – money Washington hopes to raise from its Gulf allies – in exchange for them dropping nationalist aspirations.

Since taking office, Trump has taken measures seen as both punishing to Palestinians and which also stifle the viability of a Palestinian state. He drastically slashed humanitarian aid, declared the contested city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, closed Palestinian diplomatic offices in Washington, and shuttered the US’s consulate that serves the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

The US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, a former bankruptcy lawyer who has been vocal in his support for Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories, has said Trump was “Israel’s greatest ally ever to reside in the White House”.

Friedman added the US understood Israel should have permanent military control over the Palestinian territories. Earlier this month, he was reported as saying Israel was “on the side of God”.

• This article was amended on 4 June 2019. Trump has publicly referred to his peace plan as the “ultimate deal”, not the “deal of the century”.