The much-hyped US vision for Middle East peace has finally been partially unveiled a few days before the opening of the “Peace to Prosperity” economic workshop due to take place in the Bahraini capital, Manama, June 25 and 26. A look at the conference agenda and program details exposes an unprofessional, naive and hypocritical Trump administration that is attempting to resell Israel’s failed economic peace.

The workshop program sent to invitees reinforces the very problem that Palestinians talk about. The agenda of the program is titled “Unlocking economic development and investment in the West Bank, Gaza and the region,” while the larger proposal continuously uses the term “unleashing.” Both unlocking and unleashing point out to the fact that what is holding up Palestinian prosperity is the fact that Israel has a lock on life under occupation and has kept Palestinians on a short leash.

In fact, an analysis of repeated terms in the 40-page US proposal shows the term "investment" was repeated 63 times, "financing" 20 times, "peace" 18 times, "unleashing" and "empowering" 14 times each, while West Bank, Gaza and Egypt each appeared 13 times, Jordan 12 times, Lebanon nine times, Israel six times and the word "billions" six times; not mentioned a single time were "freedom," "independence," Palestine or "occupation." 

Dan Kurtzer, the former US ambassador to Israel and Egypt and now the S. Daniel Abraham professor of Middle East Policy Studies at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, didn’t mince his words when criticizing the plan. “I would give this so-called plan a ‘C’ from an undergraduate student. The authors of the plan clearly understand nothing,” Kurtzer tweeted June 23.