US-Middle East Relations: Trump's Palestinian Economic Plan Faces Opposition From Arab World

President Trump's son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner has unveiled an economic plan that would provide Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza with $50 billion of investment over the next 10 years.

The plan, called "The Path To Prosperity," is purely an economic initiative and does not give Palestinians their own state.

Kushner on Tuesday will lead an economic conference in Manama, Bahrain, to try and get investors behind the initiative, as it is unclear how the plan will be funded. Yet the initiative is extremely controversial in the Arab world and many leaders, including those of the Palestinians, have rejected the idea.

Hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank protested against the plan over the past few days, with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh calling it "nonsense."

Palestinian Authority Leader Mahmoud Abbas won't take part in the conference, saying that the real problem facing Palestinians is political and not economic.

Lebanon is worried that the plan would not help the country, as the Lebanese would like the Palestinians in Lebanon to return to their own state. There are currently 470,000 registered Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Lebanon restricts the rights of Palestinians to work in the country.

"Nobody can accept an alternative to his homeland. Our stay is temporary," Hassan Ali Abdel Rahman, a Palestinian refugee in his 50s living in Lebanon told Reuters.

In Morocco, thousands of citizens burned Israeli flags and protested the plan in Rabat, the capital.

The Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu said it will stay open to the plan, but has not offered a full endorsement.

The only current participants in the Manama conference are delegations from Saudi Arabia and other U.S. Gulf allies. Egypt and Jordan will also send mid-level officials to the event.

Millions of Palestinians also live in Jordan, where on Friday Jordanian Islamists protested the event.

The Trump administration has called the plan "The Deal Of The Century."

Under the Obama administration, former Secretary of State John Kerry made multiple trips to the Middle East region to try and reach a peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians but came back empty-handed.