Jared Kushner, the man who bears the official title of Special Adviser to the President but who, more importantly, is a most trusted insider in the small clique of other trusted advisers to U.S. President Donald J. Trump, went to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to give a briefing to one hundred carefully chosen international diplomats.
From all reports the address cum briefing was an appeal to everyone to keep an open mind about “the deal of the century” which is now expected to be unveiled sometime in June, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has formed his government and after the month-long Muslim fast of Ramadan has ended.
The announcement as well as details of this deal have been pushed back and delayed numerous times. The unique part of this entire episode is that this White House, which is all about tweeting and telling the most ridiculous and minute details of the happenings in the Oval Office, has offered very little on this specific and long-awaited peace proposal. It seems that while the Trump White House leaks and tweets about almost everything, the big exception — the huge exception to use one of the president’s favorite adjectives — is their Middle East peace plan.
The White House has successfully kept the peace plan a secret. We have heard only a few details, and even then, nothing that has been confirmed. Supposedly the plan is tens of pages long. And, again supposedly, it stops way shy of conferring Palestinian statehood.
There are only four people who know the entire plan. They are the plan’s architects, Jared Kushner; Jason Greenblatt, Assistant to the President and Special Representative for International Negotiations; David Friedman, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel; and Kushner’s trusted assistant Avi Berkowitz. We have been told that even President Trump has not been read the entire plan but that he has been receiving updates.
It stuns me that the White House has been able to keep the plan a secret. And it stuns me even more that so many people — in the media and in diplomatic and political circles, are so ready to comment about a plan they have never read and know so little about.
Major players and parties to the plan have outright rejected the plan — and not just the Palestinians who regularly flatly reject the plan. The European Union has also already rejected the plan.
In reaction to their rejections, Jason Greenblatt, following the lead of Jared Kushner who has pleaded with all involved to keep an open mind tweeted, “Continued speculation doesn’t help anyone & harms the effort. We kindly suggest a stop to the guessing games.” Greenblatt went on to tweet that it is surprising that people reject a plan that they have not yet seen.
It is no accident that Kushner held his briefing in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The building is the nerve center of the Administration. The structure was commissioned in 1871 by President Ulysses Grant and was, for decades, the largest office building in the world with 566 rooms covering over 10 acres of floor-space. It houses the offices of both the first lady and the vice president and is right next to the White House. Architecturally, it is stunning.
Some presidents actually preferred to work in the Executive Office Building than in the Oval Office because the environment is so very professional. President Richard Nixon had his office there, in room 180. It was his hideaway office. For ceremonies and official events he used the Oval Office.
The point Jared Kushner was making was well understood by the one hundred diplomats gathered around him. All those present in the room recognize fully that it is the Eisenhower Executive Office Building where the grunt work of the Administration gets done. It is where they themselves come to engage in frank conversations about U.S. policy and its impacts on their home countries.
The reason Kushner convened the meeting at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building was to put forth the message, loudly and perfectly clearly, that this deal is a real diplomatic plan — not simply an economic improvement proposal.
Jared Kushner is asking the international community to have faith in him. When the plan is finally revealed we will determine if he lived up to the expectation that he, himself, has set for “the deal of the century.” June is just two months away and so we will be able to draw our own informed conclusions — unless, of course, the plan’s great stage entrance is pushed off yet again.
Micah Halpern is a political and foreign affairs commentator. He founded "The Micah Report" and hosts "Thinking Out Loud with Micah Halpern" a weekly TV program and "My Chopp" a daily radio spot. A dynamic speaker, he specializes in analyzing world events and evaluating their relevance and impact. Follow him on Twitter @MicahHalpern. To read more of this reports — Click Here Now.
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