Most of the reactions to the Aug. 28 decision of the Donald Trump administration to delay announcing the US vision for the Middle East have focused on the possibility or not of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu being reelected. Israeli elections are scheduled for Sept. 17. No clear winner is projected by Israeli polls.

But a Palestinian-American who recently met with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, thinks the Americans have been hoping that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would surrender and end the boycott of the Americans. Abbas ended all talks with Washington once the Trump administration announced Dec. 6, 2017, its decision to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Fadi Elsalameen, a nonresident fellow at The Foreign Policy Institute at The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told Al-Monitor that a conversation with Kushner on August 15 revealed what the US game plan regarding the Palestinian leadership is. “We were at the Hamptons, and when I asked about the US plan, Kushner told me that they have intentionally been financially squeezing the Palestinians. He said to me, ‘My plan is to dry up the money in the Palestinian [Authority] and hope [President Mahmoud] Abbas will come back,’” Elsalameen told Al-Monitor.

Elsalameen noted that although he normally is a critic of the Palestinian president, he had to defend him. “My response to him was, ‘Abbas is very stubborn. He will never come back,’” he said.