Jared Kushner Implies Two-State Solution ‘Failed’

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - APRIL 23: Senior advisor to the President of the United States, Jared
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TEL AVIV – Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner on Tuesday said previously attempts to broker a two-state solution  had “failed” and the long-anticipated “deal of the century” would be different.

“New and different ways to reach peace must be tried,” President Donald Trump’s son-in-law said at a Time magazine conference in New York.

“We’ve taken what I think is an unconventional approach. We’ve studied the past efforts and how they failed and why they failed. … We’ve tried to do it a bit differently.”

“We’ve studied the past efforts and how they failed and why they failed,” Kushner said.

Asked whether the goal of his Mideast peace plan was to create “two states,” he said, “If people focus on the old traditional talking points, we’re never going to make progress.”

Kushner added that the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative was a “very good attempt.”

“But if that would’ve worked, we would’ve made peace a long time ago on that basis,” he said.

The Arab Peace Initiative, adopted by 22 nations, called for a two-state solution along the 1967 lines and a “just” solution to the Palestinian refugee issue in exchange for normalization between Israel and Arab countries.

Kushner said Trump’s peace plan would work first and foremost on improving the lives of the people.

“Our focus is really on the bottom up, which is how do you make the lives of the Palestinian people better? What can you resolve to allow these areas to become more investable? We deal with all the core status issues because you have to do it, but we’ve also built a robust business plan for the whole region.”

Kushner added that “there will be tough compromises for both [sides].”

“I hope that when they look at our proposal — I’m not saying they’re going to … say ‘this is perfect and let’s go forward,’ I’m hopeful that what they’ll do is say ‘there are some compromises here, but at the end of the day this is really a framework to allow our lives [to get] materially better,’” Kushner said. “We’ll see if the leadership on both sides has the courage to take the leap to try and go forward.”

He stated that the plan will be unveiled after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ends at the beginning of June.

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