The United States Congress has rejected a request, from the White House, for $175mn in funds that would go towards pushing the Trump administration’s failed Middle East “peace plan”.
In a bipartisan decision, on Monday, lawmakers rejected having funds be set aside, in the government’s 2020 budget, for the so-called Trump “Deal of the Century.”
A congressional source who was involved in negotiations over the decision told Haaretz that the rejection was not motivated by politics, but rather by budgetary considerations.
“One argument against it was, ‘No one thinks this peace plan is coming out any time soon, so why devote money to it?’” the newspaper’s source said.
The Trump administration’s “Deal of the Century” was seen as a wasted effort from its inception.
The deal calls for $50bn in regional investments over 10 years, with $28bn going to the Palestinian territories – the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip – as well as $7.5bn to Jordan, $9bn to Egypt and $6n for Lebanon.
However, the Palestinian side has strongly rejected the Trump administration’s proposed deal with the Israeli regime, PNN reports.
Palestinian Authority spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh stressed, earlier this year, that any initiative short of a sovereign Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 boundaries, with the entire East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital, would be doomed from start.
(archive photo image)
