in point 7000000000 dollars last year but israel's economy is 20 times that figure almost one in every 3 palestinians are out of work unemployment average is up 30 percent in the occupies west bank and 50 percent in gaza the u.n. says nearly 70 percent of garza's population doesn't have enough food and in february israel started withholding some of the tax revenues meant to account for 65 percent of the palestinian authority's budget somebody who is policy advisor at. the palestinian policy network joins me now from ramallah good to have you with us on the program sir let's just begin with it's not the 2 t. surely for people to talk to each other at this conference in manama while there are no senior palestinian or israeli officials there there are palestinian business not businessmen and israeli businessman is that something to take from this conference or what kind of to achieve. i actually don't see it as an

opportunity the us side finding 5 uncle toms from the palestinian community to attend is not groundbreaking it's actually a step backwards who needed to be at the table today at the workshop are the political agencies involved and the palestinian political agency is the 1st and foremost one no one has the right not the us not anyone else to plan for the palestinians future development is a human right and we have that human right and we haven't given it up so not being at the conference in a political standing and definitely not in the private sector standing but rather 5 quisling palestinians is not something that's going to allow this plan to succeed not that it ever had a chance to succeed anyway ok ms tippett let's take the politics to one side and talk about the fact that what question are wants is big business to invest in a location that's a conflict zone and also where land rights and international borders are still

disputed with those factors what do big business get out of this in terms of the fact that joe about krishna wants to wants to have a positive spin on this when he leaves that location tomorrow. the fact of the matter is you cannot detach politics from economy that's why it's called political economy this is an ongoing process it's not the 1st step in the deal of the century at step number 10 that the trumpet ministration has taken secondly we've been here before we did economy before politics it was called the oslo peace accords and we spent 25 years talking only to reach the point where we are today lastly they left the elephant in the room when they went about in the elephant is the 52 years of israeli military occupation if jury is looking for a win he needs to understand that the way we view the reality here is a rape scene our economy has been raped for the last 52 years the us has stand it

been standing at the door allowing it to happen and then all of a sudden a new administration comes to us and says hey let's stop for a 2nd let's go have a pizza to discuss buying some artwork to put on the bedroom window and the doors that's not going to work we are not interested in beautifying the cages that israel has created for us we are putting our foot down and saying it's time to end this 52 years of occupation and this charade called let's keep talking ok if that's the case then what's the aim of the cold for the political part of the deal hasn't been revealed and it's not going to be revealed until the israeli general election. ends in september because the ground reality the political ground reality may change in tel aviv. actually i don't think there is a political package other than what we've seen the political part of the deal of

the century has already been released it was released by implementing it for the last year and a half without an announcement this is the final stage of something that they've started long ago i don't think a positive result could come from this workshop and that's why i wrote an open letter to jared commissioner for. one american to another given him a palestinian american telling him he didn't even give himself a chance to succeed and today we heard daniel could snare who was the u.s. ambassador to israel who teaches that i think princeton today saying that he would give this plan a theme minus from an undergraduate student it's that bad but we should see how about it does. it finishes and people can really analyze what has been achieved some beholds thanks so much for joining us from ramallah thank you thank you. goodman and a suicide bombing in egypt have killed at least 6 policemen and seriously injured 8 others the attackers talk to 3 checkpoints in the city of elevation in the northern sinai peninsula evening no group has yet claimed responsibility. the

iranian president hassan rouhani has again rejected u.s. calls for talks saying he doesn't believe washington really wants to negotiate the war of words has escalated between the 2 sides since the u.s. withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal last year the u.s. acting defense secretary mark esper has traveled to brussels to shore up international support for new sanctions imposed on iran senior leadership but he says washington is looking for a diplomatic solution i want to assure them that we are not seeking to get iran the united states is not going to go to iran rather we want to get into a diplomatic and i think my discussions with them will be and it has been beginning already is to work with us we need kind of broad gauge man on this and we only want together to get iran on the diplomatic this is not iran versus the united states this is the iran certainly versus the region and arguably. the broader global environment so we need all want together and get our diplomatic and reach

a new better agreement the more we have. meanwhile the french foreign minister even criticize iran's plans to further reduce its commitment to the nuclear deal is your . an iranian violation would be a serious mistake and a bad response to the pressure exerted by the united states to french german and british diplomacy is fully mobilized to make iran understand that it would not be in its interests. the u.k. has issued new guidelines to companies selling weapons to saudi arabia that's after a british court ruled last week the government broke the law by allowing all cells to saudi arabia citing riyadh's involvement in the war in yemen but the british government is seeking to appeal that decision for a new export licenses are not being issued to companies selling weapons to saudi arabia bahrain egypt the u.a.e. and kuwait under smith is the spokesman for the campaign against the arms trade the group that filed the case against the u.k. government london he says britain won't be able to send more weapons until

a review of previous sales is carried out. all the weapons that are already with the military are we for so the military it means that we can't undo any of the damage which has already been done but right now as we're speaking there can very well be u.k. made fater jets flying over yemen who will be firing uki made missiles and dropping u.k. made bombs however be government is not able to send any further bombs and missiles until it has carried a photo to view of the previous seals and certainly it's not great band but it certainly is something which will not have been welcomed by the u.k. government who were fated to finial it will not have been welcomed by the saudi dictatorship and it will have been very bad news for the arms companies because for decades now you say to the player has been by far the largest buyer of u.k. weapons anywhere in the world. and the us said it is trying to make it more difficult for president trying to push through

a congressional review the measure follows trans $8000000000.00 deal with saudi arabia and the u.a.e. which he claimed was an emergency it's not clear when the full senate will take up the bill 1st and trump has promised to veto it. now the field say of murdered sandy jonas jamal khashoggi has called on the u.n. to take action on its recent findings un special rapporteur will present a final report on casualties killing to the un human rights council on wednesday she's already pushing for an independent investigation victoria gate to be as small . as america you had jesus came to geneva to deliver a warning the door for terry an oil rich states such as saudi arabia and the united arab emirates are in their words flagrantly violating human rights and that the international community must do more to hold the leaders of these countries to account chang is fiance jamal has shows he was murdered inside the saudi consulate in istanbul last october she's called on the un to take action over his killing.

will not for her this is an outrageous murder well beyond money oil policies if the u.n. and other major international organizations do not follow up such incidents all murders then who would do it. hedges is the british academic who was jailed last year on charges of spying in the u.a.e. he was in solitary confinement and now says he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder the president pardoned him after a campaign by his wife stays panelists myself included have been 1st time victims and witnesses of the growing oppression mechanisms established by or for terri in states to suppress free thinking domestically and internationally. the saudi government has rejected the un's recent reporting to her shows she's murder as full of baseless allegations and clear contradictions but special rapporteur agnes

callum ard says the u.n. must not allow the continued abusive unchecked state power i want to. suggest that the killing of mr cashel is symbolic of many other killings of many of the patterns of many other trends around the world for which the international community cannot. turn a blind eye to the un human rights chief michel basher lay says she regrets what she calls saudi arabia's dismissal of the un's report into her shoulder is murder his fiance says that such words fall far short of the action needed the tory gate in the al-jazeera. saudi arabia's crown prince mohammed bin somalis on his 1st foreign visit since the un report held he condemned responsible for the murder of khashoggi he is in south korea for a 2 day visit ahead of his weekend's g 20 summit in japan is the highest level visit to south korea by

a saudi leader in more than 2 decades. staying in the region south korea's president mungy and says the u.s. has been holding behind the scenes talks with north korea for a 3rd summit earlier north korea called the u.s. extension of sanctions against it an act of hostility the versions were imposed over pyongyang's nuclear missile programs a summit between trump and kim jong un collapsed in february without a deal. more than a 1000 people in hong kong have marched to foreign consular offices calling for international help to scrap a controversial extradition bill they see chief executive kerry land which should have withdrawn and not just because the legislation allowing suspects to be taken to mainland china protesters are hoping the foreign leaders will raise the issue with chinese president xi jinping at the g 20 summit in japan later this week. the zimbabwe dollar has been reintroduced a decade after inflation destroyed its value shoppers can no longer spend foreign

currency and zimbabweans must instead use local money but people are worried the move will lead to the return of inflation or i'm a tosser. thanks to zimbabwe's government says the batting the use of foreign currencies will stop the black market money trade is blamed for rising inflation until a new local currency is introduced the government has made the temporaries a bob and donna known as r t g s the only legal tender some might say using multiple cards is was not sustainable for businesses which needed already limited foreign countries for the imports and not to pay the salaries of local employees that we call how come you're inside the lymph nodes once we're increasing before mostly it's funny because you know i also need to inform the guy was what i'm able to purchase for the choir nugent for mortgages which are right before you come into the show this is the shift. should be sustained so that we're able to then

focus from for the actual. zimbabwe stopped using it's more than a decade ago off to the hyperinflation exists of printing and shortages people can still keep foreign currency but they must change it to local money before purchasing goods are doing analysis with countries that have dollars in the past and it has taken on average 30 years for resistant to after the stuff used to sit in a physical store people with it used to us that are most able they tend to become what a great economy addicted divorced people that it was going to take a long time for people to fully trust and therefore you know. other economists disagree i think is no country in the world that a rift with out its own currency current still running to his feet because right now the reason they did not have more trouble $101.00 isn't. regional banks can not control the money supply can be quantum because it is not our own currency this

gives them an opportunity to withdraw money supply can actually begin to be directed money to productive between in the contending with regions which is the problem. union leaders are against a ban on using foreign currencies if the government does not reverse this really nice police immediately and are now as us do alas a lot of pain means we were immediately more delays we guys for my section monetary policy changes often need to uncertainty in zimbabwe this latest one is no different all most people can do is wait and see how the markets react. algis their putting. your children their homes the whole realm of these are all top news stories white house adviser john has unveiled the economic part of a u.s. middle east peace plan in bahrain warned palestinians are acceptance of the initiative is a precondition for peace but palestinians have rejected the proposal. and

in a shrubbery a senior palestinian official had this reaction. that. this is an exercise indeed and next to this is when you leave all these projects and all these go out it's as if they were getting out anywhere in the world without a doubt about it without any reference to the borders of the south and. violence. to sell them to. and i hear sounds like that was the family and a little knowledge and understanding of the. the u.n. says donors have pledged $113000000.00 to help millions of palestinian refugees this year but it falls far short of more than $1000000000.00 that are needed a rower has been struggling for cash since the u.s.

government cut funding last year i think the situation is extremely precarious when you think of a 1000000 people possibly not receiving food assistance in gaza in addition to all the other hardships that they face it's something that nobody should even contemplate allowing to happen. donald trump has vowed to veto new legislation aimed at addressing surging numbers of asylum seekers coming across the mexican border the house of representatives approved a $4500000000.00 aid package which includes help to shelter and feed those in custody. more than 100 migrant children have been returned to an already overcrowded detention center in texas despite reports of appalling conditions lawyers who inspected the facility say children didn't have access to soap or toothbrushes and have showered since they crossed the border a gunman and a suicide bomber egypt have killed at least 6 policemen and seriously injured 8 others the attackers targeted 3 checkpoints in the city the elevation in the northern sinai peninsula on tuesday evening no group has claimed responsibility

those are the headlines more news in half an hour makes its top trial just era to stay with us. to. see. it has taken 2 years to prepare the trumpet ministration now unveiling its plan for bringing the palestinians and the israelis to the negotiating table already skeptics are voicing concern saying the american side is using money to bribe the palestinians the plan as an invasion by the trumpet ministration is to gather momentum behind efforts to commit $50000000000.00 for investments in palestine money that primarily is expected to come from other

arab nations principally in the gulf this part of the plan is being discussed this week in bahrain where participants will talk about projects and conditions when vestments in more detail then based on the outcome of this meeting the next step would be to fashion a political settlement that would translate financial commitments into reality on the ground in palestine but keep palestinian institutions are not attending the mana my meeting for example the palestinian authority which is arguing for a reverse order a political settlement 1st money later an approach that would tackle the difficult questions of establishing a palestinian state and israeli occupation of palestinian lands and allow refugees to return the israeli government is also not attending the meeting at least not officially the man who is spearheading the plan is president trump's senior adviser and son in law gerry coaster and today at the white house he sits down on talk to

al-jazeera to explain the trumpet ministrations strategy for bringing peace between the israelis and the palestinians. mr. great to have you on a busy it out thank you very much for the time i just wanted to briefly start by asking you what does doing this interview at this time we've ever. mean to you thank you well it's an honor to be with you and thank you for coming to the white house and we're excited we leave in a couple hours to go to bahrain for what will be a very exciting workshop we thought was very important to speak to al-jazeera it's been a great voice in the region and somebody that we've been working with and we're hopeful that this will give us the opportunity to have a direct line to a lot of the people in the middle east now the workshop in. what will be your metrics for measuring this success of it. so i think it's already been

a success in the sense that we have every country coming from the region we have a lot of countries coming from throughout the world despite people who tried to get them not to come they're all coming and that's a very big 1st step the 2nd step is that we've been able to get some of the top investors and people from throughout the world to come who are showing interest in helping the palestinian people in the region right now we've a lot of investment funds that won't invest in the middle east because it's not stable they don't have peace they don't have security and so we want to show people is that there is a great potential a great future for this region if it's possible so we laid out our vision a couple days ago and that's starting to get a lot of discussion in the region and we hope that this conference will be able to further discuss it figure out where people agree figure out where people have different suggestions and then hopefully form a real consensus around what the potential could be for the region if there is a peace agreement so how will you tally you'll metrics measuring success with the metrics that others especially the skeptics may have about the success of

the show and i think that with the whole peace process in general people are right to be skeptical there it's a problem that has been unsolved for many many years and what i find is a lot of the christian criticism we get are from people who have tried to do this in the past and who have failed and then they criticize us for not doing it the same way that they've done it again the president is not a traditional politician he wants to do things in a in a different way and if we can get people through this process to look at this problem differently and to see what the future can be then i think that could be a very very big successful thing we laid out our vision we put on our website it started to circulate we've seen a ton of downloads and internet traffic on it in the west bank and gaza and throughout the middle east and that's great we need to start the discussion then i will want his people to see that there can be a very bright future this plan calls for $50000000000.00 of investment both between private capital and low interest loans and grants we want to build all the necessary infrastructure we want to make sure that these different industries are stimulated if we do that properly. we believe that this plan will create over

a 1000000 new jobs in the west bank in gaza we think it can reduce the unemployment rate to under the single digits and we think that it could decrease the poverty rate by 50 percent those are all goals that we should really strive to they cannot happen without a peace agreement but without a real plan prosperity doesn't just happen prosperity has to be planned for earned an executed very vigorously so you obviously packs a lot of information goals in there i will try to pack them individually but let me ask you 1st it's one thing to get people to come and attend the workshop but when things when the rubber so to speak hits the road that's the real challenge so how will you apply those metrics to the reality when the reality actually begins if it does begin to be a reality in terms of getting that money dispersing it and pumping it into projects right so

a lot of the pledges that have been made in the past have not been fulfilled then i think that's because there was never really a product designed for let's all agree on the front end for what we're going to try to do with the capital that comes in and then let's make sure we have a mechanism to monitor that it will actually go through we believe in rewarding results not rewarding efforts and i think that if we can get everyone to buy in on the front end to what. to what an economic plan could be and i think they'll make it much easier to get people to all agree to invest capital and then hopefully make sure that that follows through nobody knows more about broken promises than the palestinian people there's been more promises that been made to them and broken to over the years the one thing about president trump is he's one of the few leaders people have seen in that region who actually keeps this promise whether you like his decisions or you don't like his decisions people know that when he says he's going to do something he's going to do it and one of the things he said is he wants to see this conflict come to an end he wants to help the palestinian people and part of this is his vision for what he can do to really create a different paradigm in the region so obviously the palestinians and others in the

why. arab world on this issue of. president don't trump promises they will say he promised and he delivered to the israelis he promised to recognize drew slim as the capital of israel and he lived up to that promise but at the same time promising that to the israelis to the palestinians that stant amount to trying to kill their dreams for having their own capital in jerusalem. so the recognizing israel's capital is jerusalem has been law in the united states since 1906 it was passed unanimously israel's a sovereign nation a sovereign nation has the right to determine where their capital is and america has the right to recognize the decision of another sovereign nation which is what we chose to do that is a promise the president kept another promise the president kept is to get out of the j c p a way the iran deal which has been a terrible deal which has caused

a lot of destruction throughout the region another promise the president made is that he would destroy isis and take back the caliphate and he's done that too so the president's kept his promises that impact all people throughout the region with regard to the palestinian people when the president moved the embassy to jerusalem he said that this should not impact final status negotiations issues we've been working very carefully on a very deep proposal for what we think can help bring this conflict which has been stuck forward and we're hopeful that we'll be able to put that out soon and hopefully parties will be responsible they'll gauge on it and they'll try to move forward and now beyond the workshop in. i mean is the president is president donald trump committed to actually helping the palestinians achieve their own independent state as they claim with jerusalem as its capital to help them deal with the issue of palestinian refugees them their return things political things that are very important to the palestinians is present

don't drum and all you are committed to so we are committed to trying to find a different solution for the region and people forward and again what president trump is focused on here in america is how do you improve people's lives how do you give them security had to give them prosperity there's a lot of different ways to do that the the reforms that we've done here in america have led to our economy being incredibly strong the president looks at this region and he says he doesn't want to think through traditional lenses he wants to think about how do we take all these people let them live together let them live. securely and let them live with real opportunity and hope so we're not going discuss the political components in this workshop we're going to be doing that at a later date but i can assure you that president trump is committed to bringing real prosperity to the region and also bring safety to the region you see that in his actions with isis you see that actions with iran and you see that in terms of all the ways that he's been fighting to kind of make the region more safe let me take you back to the workshop for

a while now the. the middle east crises the blow up unexpectedly sometimes how will you. convince or what guarantees will you give to the people who will be attending the minimal workshop that if they pledge money or investment to build palestinian infrastructure that that money will be well invested given that in the past in conflicts between these radios and the palestinians palestinian infrastructure was destroyed the government in gaza is a good case in point right and when the infrastructure is destroyed in the investments and stops who suffers the most the palestinian people and so i think the point huge and the question you just asked makes my point entirely which is that right now the region is not investable in a way that it needs to be in order for it to be investable we need to resolve these core conflicts we don't resolve these core conflicts by being firm on a position without finding a way to compromise and to negotiate but we're trying to show people is that if

there is compromise and if we are able to find a resolution that's fair to both sides we can create an apparatus where there is security and where there is prosperity these investors a lot of them are showing up because they don't just want to create returns they want to see this area do better they want to see an opportunity but these are also people who are not going to be investing if they think that they're good money's going to go after bad money and there's a lot of examples in the past how investments have been squandered how infrastructure has been destroyed but again that's because of bad leadership on behalf of the palestinians and it's also because we're in a situation where there's conflict there. we can end the conflict we can resolve the issues then that will lead to better lives for and more opportunity for the palestinian people now when there's conflict as you know obviously these radios blame the palestinians and the palestinians and their supporters blame the israelis and that leads to the criticism at least from the palestinian side that by doing when i am

a few up watching the cart before the horse they are arguing you should try to settle some of the political questions in order to stave off conflict then poor money into the infrastructure that's been the traditional thinking and that has not worked i mean we are where we are today and the way that people have thought about this in the past it hasn't worked so what we've tried to do is help people identify what a future could look like and hopefully we get people to all agree on what a future can look like and then we get people to look at maybe let's commit to the future in the event that there is a peace agreement perhaps that will create a different condition there which people can then approach some of these political issues that have been a resolvable for a very very long time how much financial commitment if you're able to say did you actually get from the rich arab states whether in the gulf or elsewhere the fact is they are principally in the gulf so the plan this

plan with the $50000000000.00 actually will require less annual contributions to the palestinians than we have on an annual basis to date so for a lot of the donor nations not just from the middle east but also from throughout the world right now they keep giving money every year the people's lives are not getting better there's no plan to ever resolve it but we want them to do is figure out how do you all buy into one universal plan and then let's start investing in a way that will actually lead to a domino effect of people's lives getting better you know for years and years there's been money thrown at this problem but there's been no accountability and people have not been held. result some people are fine with the status quo they've done very well from it but the money is not trickled down to the people in their lives have not gotten better we need to create a new framework because what they've done in the past has not worked. dress for me a little bit criticism leveled at you by the palestinians workshop the minimal workshop in particular they are saying basically these radius got.

recognition over jerusalem as its. capital for example and now you are telling them the power stimulus that we will give you money which they called as you know they called it a bribe and on top of that they say this is a lot of money coming from arabs going to arabs in this case the palestinians can you address that i think that you know people mockingly call this the deal of the century i think the plan that we've laid out is actually the opportunity of the century you talk about the palestinians like they're a homogeneous body what we have is we have a lot of palestinians since we put this out who are calling us saying this is phenomenal what do we have to do to get this we want this is exactly what we need thank you for taking the time to put together such an in-depth plan thank you for getting the world interested in seeing that the way that they've been doing it to date has not worked and for highlighting the way forward so from our point of view we think that this is a step forward because we want people to discuss new ideas look at this problem

differently and again you know people who come with criticism it's very easy to see what you're against it's much harder to say what you're for and what we've done is we've done the hard work we've studied this problem we've studied all the global economies that have been successful over the last 75 years we've studied economies where it's failed we've drawn from the best ideas we customize this plan for work here we've built it off a lot of the great work that's been done in the past and what we've done is we've put forward a very credible substantive detailed plan for how to move forward and then what we'll do is will refine it again nobody's got a good may not nobody's got a monopoly on good ideas will be fine. this will get buy in and then we'll go and we'll try to address the political solutions but what i do know is that a lot of the people who are criticizing are not people have been constructive these are people who've been involved in this for a very very long time and these are people who have not found solutions and who have not helped to make the palestinians people's lives better did you incidentally invite any input while preparing for this from the palestinians themselves in terms of the concept i guess as a concept so few things one is the reason we're doing economics 1st before the

political solution is that they're both very in-depth. documents that we put together and we were told that would be too much to digest both at one time so we're putting this forward knowing that we would get criticism that we're doing this without the political but like i said you can't execute these economic plans without having a political solution so the advice we got from people in the region was to put this out 1st and we thought that that would get people to focus on this so that when they enter into the political discussion they have this in context and again over the last 2 years we've engaged extensively with a lot of palestinian leaders a lot of palestinian business community a lot of people throughout the middle east we have not been trying to impose a solution on this region that we think works we're trying to draw from the region all the best ideas and then help people create a new framework to discuss these issues that have not been able to be resolved in the past but did you get any input from the palestinian authority. we have had not going to comment on this question we've had with them are happening that have with

us now the palestinian decision not to. workshop is that a blow not at all look it was fairly predictable what they've been saying his a lot of very hot rhetoric about rejecting everything before they even see it which is not in my opinion a very responsible position the responsible thing is to say we've been trying to do this for 25 years we have not made any breakthroughs if people are coming in there trying to spend the effort to create a blueprint for us to be able to have a better future willing gauge with them will listen for whatever reason they think it's better politics for them or better policy to to say all the things they've been saying but i don't see how their actions are going to lead to their lives of the people getting better i know that when president trump takes decisions or make statements he's always looking at it through the filter of will this keep the people that i was elected to represent safer will this help them have more opportunity to live a better life but right now quite frankly i'm not sure i understand what their strategy is and my hope is that as we put these as we put these elements out

they'll realize that there's a lot of good elements here that will help their people have a better life and they'll engage now the main beef the palestinian authority has your plan as you know is that they saying. instead of land for peace that of the principle of land for peace.