In the long, lamented history of Israeli-Palestinian peace plans, rarely have expectations been so low. As Jared Kushner took to the stage in Bahrain to effectively lay waste to decades of doctrine on how to solve the conflict, a solution seemed more out of reach than ever.

Kushner’s proposal has been put together by hardliners who have tossed out the rulebook and written a formula of their own serving the interests of the Israeli rightwing.

The “Peace to Prosperity” conference on Tuesday marked the moment where the new mantra was imposed, demanding that Palestinians put a price on their surrender or risk losing even more ground under the most accommodating US administration that Israel has ever known.

While Kushner acknowledged that the prosperity he touted was not possible without a “fair political solution”, a political dimension does not appear to be on the administration’s radar.

And given Donald Trump’s record, it remains difficult to see how it could be in the remainder of his term. In less than 18 months, Jerusalem has been declared as Israel’s capital, US humanitarian aid has been slashed, settlement construction supported and diplomatic missions closed in Washington, the West Bank and Gaza.

Add to that Trump’s recognition of Israel’s claim to the Golan Heights, captured from Syria 52 years ago, and there appears little hope of serious discussions.

The foundations of longstanding peace plans underwritten by the US have been torn down and the model is now unrecognisable. There remains an outside chance that some of these seismic policy shifts could be overturned at a negotiating table. But sitting down at one may be a bridge too far for Palestinians bewildered by the abdication from time-honoured formulas. They would be doing so at the mercy of an administration that unashamedly favours one side.

Trump officials have consistently failed to commit to the two-state solution model, the principles of which took Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin to the White House lawn in 1993, and Arafat and Ehud Barak to Camp David seven years later.

Both were seminal moments that drew both sides to the point of a solution. Though they failed, they gave a glimpse of what might have been. Nothing has come close since and the ever more complicated political, legal and moral dimensions of the 71-year-old conflict had made a solution unlikely even before the Trump-imposed worldview.

Trump has embraced the notion of being disruptor-in-chief, the leader who shook up an ossified world order, who abandoned the playbook, ignored briefings and made consequential calls on instinct and conviction.

Kushner has infused his role as Middle East envoy with the approach of a business baron. “User pays” has been central to the way he has tried to do business in the region and his considerations have often been devoid of cultural or political realities. A central factor in the slow growth of the Palestinian economy has been the Israeli occupation. His “pathway to prosperity” plan does not appear to recognise this.

With a weakened hand and little in the coffers, the Palestinians are facing immense pressure not to reject the deal outright. So far they have shown no appetite for anything that Kushner has to offer. A combustible Palestinian public, which on Tuesday rounded on the Bahrain workshop as a “sellout and surrender”, leaves little room to change their mind.

“Not that we want to anyway,” said a senior PLO official in Beirut. “To do so would be the shame of a lifetime.”