Covenant With Many

Kushner to visit Mideast for peace plan push - Politico
Politico reports: "The president’s son-in-law will reveal significant details of the economic portion of the Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan. Jared Kushner will crisscross the Middle East later this month seeking buy-in for his peace plan from leaders throughout the region. [...] The forthcoming trip is intended in part to gauge regional reaction to the economic portion of the plan, which would create economic incentives — likely including job opportunities — for Palestinians."

Comment: I'm waiting eagerly to see how Trump's Mideast peace plan will differ from his predecessors. Will it require Israel to give up land to those peaceful Palestinians in yet another "land for peace" scheme? How much land is Israel expected to give and in exchange for what? After all, look at Gaza. Israel ceded control of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians in 2005 and instead of using it to build a nice proto-state with schools, hospitals and parks they turned it into a missile launching platform and impoverished the people with corruption. Do we really think the Palestinians will make better use of even more land? From these very early reports, it would appear that Trump's plan does indeed offer new initiatives by asking regional players to support the peace plan financially. This looks to be a smart move if it makes Mideast peace a regional effort - a group effort  - and is thus less likely to disintegrate in the face of notoriously fickle Palestinian leadership. Well, times will tell of course, but Kushner's trip is an interesting development, one we will follow closely.