The White House on June 22 outlined a $50 billion West Asia economic plan that would create a global investment fund to lift the Palestinian and neighboring Arab state economies, and fund a $5 billion transportation corridor to connect the West Bank and Gaza.

The “peace to prosperity” plan, set to be presented by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner at a conference in Bahrain next week, includes 179 infrastructure and business projects, according to details of the plan.

The economic revival plan, the product of two years of work by Kushner and other aides, would take place only if a political solution to the region’s long-running problems is reached.

More than half of the $50 billion would be spent in the economically troubled Palestinian territories over 10 years, while the rest would be split between Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan.

Some of the projects would be in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, where investments could benefit Palestinians living in adjacent Gaza, a crowded and impoverished coastal enclave.

The plan also proposes nearly $1 billion to build up the Palestinians’ tourism sector, a seemingly impractical notion for now given the frequent flare-ups between Israeli forces and militants from Hamas-ruled Gaza, and the tenuous security in the occupied West Bank.

The Trump administration hopes that wealthy Gulf states and nations in Europe and Asia, along with private investors, would foot much of the bill, Kushner said.

“The whole notion here is that we want people to agree on the plan and then we will have a discussion with people to see who is interested in potentially doing what,” he said.

The unveiling of the economic blueprint follows two years of deliberations and delays in rolling out a broader peace plan between Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinians - who are boycotting the event - have refused to talk to the Trump administration since it recognised Jerusalem as the Israeli capital in late 2017.

Veteran Palestinian negotiator Hanan Ashrawi dismissed the proposals, saying: “These are all intentions, these are all abstract promises” and said only a political solution would solve the conflict.

Kushner said some Palestinian business executives have confirmed their participation at the conference.

Several Gulf Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, will also participate in the June 25-26 US-led gathering in Bahrain’s capital, Manama, for Kushner’s rollout of the first phase of the peace plan.

The White House said it decided against inviting the Israeli government because the Palestinian Authority would not be there, making do instead with a small Israeli business delegation.

Palestinian officials reject the overall US-led peace effort as heavily tilted in favour of Israel and likely to deny them a fully sovereign state of their own.

Kushner’s attempt to decide economic priorities first while initially sidestepping politics ignores the realities of the conflict, say many experts.

“This is completely out of sequence because the Israeli-Palestinian issue is primarily driven by historical wounds and overlapping claims to land and sacred space,” said Aaron David Miller, a former West Asia negotiator for Republican and Democratic administrations.

Kushner acknowledges that “you can’t push the economic plan forward without resolving the political issues as well”. He said the administration will “address that at a later time”, referring to the second stage of the peace plan’s rollout now expected no earlier than November.

Kushner says his approach is aimed at laying out economic incentives to show the Palestinians the potential for a prosperous future if they return to the table to negotiate a peace deal.

Kushner’s proposed new investment fund for the Palestinians and neighboring states would be administered by a “multilateral development bank”. Global financial lenders including the IMF and World Bank plan to be present at the meeting.

A signature project would be to build a travel corridor for Palestinian use that would cross Israel to link the West Bank and Gaza. It could include a highway and possibly a rail line. The narrowest distance between the territories - whose populations have long been divided by Israeli travel restrictions - is about 40 km.

Kushner said that if executed, the plan would create a million jobs in the West Bank and Gaza, reduce Palestinian poverty by half and double the Palestinians’ GDP.

Kushner sees his economic approach as resembling the Marshall Plan, which Washington introduced in 1948 to rebuild Western Europe from the devastation of World War II. Unlike the US-funded Marshall Plan, however, the latest initiative would put much of the financial burden on other countries.

Economic programmes have been tried before in the long line of US-led peace efforts, only to fail for lack of political progress. Kushner’s approach may be the most detailed so far.

Highlights of the plan

* Donor nations and investors would contribute about $50 billion, with $28 billion going to the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza, $7.5 billion to Jordan, $9 billion to Egypt and $6 billion for Lebanon. The White House hopes wealthy Gulf states will be among the biggest donors.

* Money raised would be placed in a newly created fund to boost the economies of the Palestinian areas and those three countries. It would be administered by a multinational development bank. The funds would be managed by a board of governors who would determine allocation based on project proposals.

* $15 billion of the total would come from grants, $25 billion in subsidised loans, and about $11 billion would come in through private capital.

* 179 economic development projects would be funded, including 147 for the West Bank and Gaza, 15 for Jordan, 12 for Egypt and five for Lebanon.

* The projects include infrastructure, water, power, telecommunications, tourism and medical facilities, among others.

* Tens of millions of dollars would be set aside for projects intended to draw closer connections between the Gaza Strip and Egypt’s Sinai through services, infrastructure and trade.

* Power lines from Egypt into Gaza would be upgraded and rehabilitated to increase the flow of electricity. It also proposes exploring ways to better use existing Egyptian industrial zones to promote trade between Egypt, Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, but does not identify the zones.

* Further proposals for Egypt are to “support port expansion and business incentives for the Egyptian trade hub near the Suez Canal”, as well as to develop Sinai tourism facilities near the Red Sea.

* The plan touts for Palestinian areas the “potential to transform into a successful global tourism destination”, and proposes $950 million in grants and loans to develop the Palestinian tourism industry. It seeks to repair and restore historical and religious sites and beachfront areas.

* If carried out, the plan would double Palestinian GDP in 10 years, create more than 1 million jobs in the West Bank and Gaza, reduce unemployment to single digits and the poverty rate by 50 percent.

* Kushner is taking a two-phased approach to the peace plan. The next phase will be the much more sensitive political part, which deals with some of the core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The timing for that remains unclear.

* Kushner wants to get feedback on his plan from the various finance ministers and investment institution representatives who will attend the workshop and gauge what tweaks might be needed to gain it broader support.