Palestinians say that the occupation, with its restrictions on the movement of people and goods, unpredictable delays, confiscations of property and natural resources and nearly insurmountable obstacles to development, is the single biggest impediment to the growth of their economy.

Yet the conference seemed to buy into a longstanding Israeli counterargument: that the corruption of Palestinian leaders, rather than the occupation, is most responsible for holding their people back.

“They’ve blamed Israel and everyone else for all the people’s problems,” Mr. Kushner said of Palestinian politicians, “when in fact the common theme coming up is that this is all achievable if the government wants to make these reforms.”

Indeed, speaker after speaker in Manama — including ministers from several Arab countries of the Persian Gulf — made a point to argue that the Palestinians’ natural entrepreneurship, strong literacy and educational attainment levels could all be unleashed but for the poor “governance” and the absence of “transparency” and of the “rule of law” that they said afflict the West Bank and Gaza.

“They are missing the point,” said Sam Bahour, a Palestinian-American business consultant who was watching the proceedings online from Ramallah, in the West Bank. “The point is not talking about pie-in-the-sky projects. These projects, if you take the word ‘Palestinian’ out of them, any developing country can do well. Some of them have been talked about for 25 years now. Why haven’t they materialized? What’s stopping them? The Israeli military occupation. It’s the elephant they left out of the circus when they went to Bahrain.”