Jared Kushner and Donald Trump
Jared Kushner and Donald TrumpREUTERS

The euphoria over US President Trump’s vision on solving the century-old Palestinia- Israeli conflict is over, due in large part to the Arab conduct and that of the US administration over the past week.

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas is leading the assault on Trump’s plan and made good on his promise to say "a thousand nos" to the peace plan which he has called “the slap of the century.”

After announcing that he would turn to the UN Security Council to get support for his refusal to even read the plan, Abbas went first to Cairo to secure the support of the Arab League for boycotting the plan.

The League later decided to back Abbas' request and announced that it “rejects the US-Israeli ‘deal of the century’ considering that it does not meet the minimum rights and aspirations of Palestinian people.”

Abbas later announced he would cut all ties with Israel and the US including security coordination with the IDF in Judea and Samaria.

“We’ve informed the Israeli side…that there will be no relations at all with them and the United States, including security ties,” Abbas said in Cairo.

It remains to be seen if he will make good on this promise, which he has issued at least fifty times before, because it would mean he and other senior PA leaders would be unable to leave Ramallah without coordination with Israel.

Abbas failed to mobilize the Palestinian street, however, the only mass demonstration held against the plan was in Tel Aviv where leftist Israelis together with Israeli Arabs demonstrated against Trump’s plan on Saturday evening and in Jordan where thousands of Palestinian Jordanians took the streets.

The Palestinian public is apparently tired of its leader, who is in the 16th year of his 4-year-term as Palestinian President, because he’s not able to deliver on his promises and has the reputation of a thief who’s only interested in filling his coffers and that of his family-clan.

The only Palestinian faction that reacted with violence to Trump’s plan is Hamas in Gaza. Over the past four days, Hamas allowed the launch of at least 10 rockets and mortars from Gaza as well as the use of fifty incendiary balloons which in many cases brought explosive devices to southern Israel.

The Sunni Islamist terror group is walking a dangerous thin line in its current confrontation with Israel.

On one hand, Hamas wants to show the Palestinian public that it is the only truly determined ‘resistance’ movement against Israel and the US but on the other hand it doesn’t want to trigger a war with Israel at this point in time.

The Trump Administration, meanwhile, made a grave mistake by not allowing Israel to immediately implement Israeli sovereignty over the so-called settlements in Judea and Samaria and over the Jordan Valley.

Jared Kushner, Trump’s son in law and his most important adviser on the ‘peace process’, pulled the brakes on Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s intention to convene his cabinet in order to discuss the implementation of Israeli sovereignty over these areas in the so-called West Bank.

Kushner wants the Israeli government to implement the sovereignty clauses of the peace plan only after the Israeli elections on March 2.

His opinion contradicts that of US ambassador David Friedman who supported the quick implementation of Israeli sovereignty over thirty percent of Area C in Judea and Samaria as well as the whole Jordan Valley.

By demanding from Israel to wait with the implementation of this part of Trump’s plan Kushner caused the plan losing its momentum and gave a number of Arab countries the opportunity to reverse their earlier positions on the plan and to rally around Abbas who even has refused to read the plan.

Kushner has now embarked on a diplomatic and public relations tour to limit the damage he himself caused and blames the Palestinian leadership for the new impasse.

The US envoy also tried to rebrand the Trump vision on peace and prosperity for the Palestinian people by making statements about certain aspects of the plan which he called “not scientific.”

During an interview with Egyptian TV, Kushner said "the plan seeks to curb the expansion of the settlements, to allow the feasibility of a Palestinian state" and claimed the maps attached to the plan were “not final”.

"The map attached to the plan is not a scientific map. If the Palestinians don't like where the line is drawn, they should come and tell us where they want to draw it," Kushner said during the interview.

It seemed an attempt to undo what Trump said last week when he exclaimed “The United States will recognize Israeli sovereignty over the territory that my vision provides to be part of the State of Israel.”

Kushner now uses language indicating the old-failed-land for peace formula is still feasible and gives the Palestinian leadership another opportunity to get off the hook.

It doesn’t matter he also harshly criticized some Palestinian leaders for missing every opportunity for making a deal with Israel such as Saeb Erekat the jobless Palestinian ‘Chief Negotiator’.

Kushner blamed Erekat personally for the failures in the various peace processes over the past 25 years.

"He (Erekat) says a lot of things that have turned out not to be true. The guy has a perfect track record at failing at making peace deals,” Kushner told his interviewer Amr Adeeb.

“In my business, when someone tries to do business for 25 years and fails, he is replaced by someone else,” he added.

The damage had already been done, however.

By stalling the quick implementation of the crucial ‘Israeli sovereignty’ clause of the Trump plan Kushner gave the Arabs the possibility to return to their old positions and by doing this he could have killed his own peace plan before Israel would have the possibility to implement it.