Saudi Prince Says Kushner’s Mideast Peace Plan ‘Up in the Air’

(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan won’t succeed unless it involves a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem, a senior Saudi prince said.

“The plan is something that is up in the air,” Prince Turki Al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and an influential royal family member, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in London.

“Without a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem, and its identity as a viable and sovereign state, there is not going to be any peace in the Middle East.”

U.S. President Donald Trump’s son in law, Jared Kushner, is charged with brokering the administration’s peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians, believed to hinge partly on support from wealthy Gulf Arab states including Saudi Arabia.

Kushner, a senior adviser to the president, last month introduced a $50 billion plan to bolster the Palestinian economy at a conference in Bahrain. That meeting was attended by representatives from the Saudi government and other Gulf states, but not Israeli or Palestinian officials.

Al-Faisal said that the economic plan must be considered as “part and parcel” of the yet-to-be announced political proposal.

The Palestinian Authority says any plan must include the establishment of an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The Palestinians broke off contact with the U.S. administration in December 2017 after Trump recognized contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and announced he’d move the American embassy there from Tel Aviv.

--With assistance from Sarah Algethami.

To contact the reporters on this story: Guy Johnson in London at gjohnson87@bloomberg.net;Vonnie Quinn in New York at vquinn@bloomberg.net;Vivian Nereim in Riyadh at vnereim@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at asalha@bloomberg.net, Michael Gunn

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