(Bloomberg Opinion) -- What could be more pointless than a "Palestinian investment conference" without Palestinians? One without Israelis, as well.
Or at least without Israelis empowered to make deals.
The Trump administration’s "economic workshop" scheduled for June 25-26 in Bahrain had already been rendered meaningless by the refusal of Palestinian business leaders, as well as the Palestinian political leadership, to participate.
Now Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has failed to form a government in the wake of his April 9 election victory, making the conference even more meaningless, if that’s possible. He’s had to call a new election, scheduled for Sept. 17, meaning that any Israeli delegation in Bahrain will not be representing a stable, established government.
So, while there might be Israelis present at the conference led by Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East envoy, they'll be representing a non-government with no mandate and no future.
This even invalidates the subtler idea that this charade is really designed to bring Israel closer to Gulf Arab countries simply by putting them in the same room, ostensibly to discuss benefiting Palestinians even if the Palestinians themselves are absent.
The deeper subtext appears to have been a conviction by Kushner and his colleagues that they could speak directly to the Palestinian public, civil society and business leaders and bypass the political leadership.
If they did, what they’d discover is that the Palestinian public is, if anything, more inflexible in its commitment to national aspirations, which the Trump team dismisses as "tired talking points," than the political leaders they find so intransigent.
Underneath it all is the fantasy that Americans could create an alternative Palestinian leadership built on the economic incentives they are trying to create beginning at the Bahrain meeting.
It's always possible to find individual businessmen who are interested in making a buck. But there is no possibility of discovering or creating a critical mass of Palestinians that will abandon the goals of self-determination, independence and citizenship.
Which brings us back to the Israeli election. Netanyahu was unable to form a cabinet largely because he is seeking an immunity law that will protect him from criminal charges resulting from a corruption investigation.
But unless the September election produces a radically different result than the April vote, Israel will be continuing a relentless march towards annexation and the abandonment of any notion of a two-state arrangement with the Palestinians.
If the Trump-Kushner idea is to use the economic conference to entice Palestinians to reconcile themselves to this process, they’re dreaming. Israelis have gotten the message of the first two years of the Trump administration loud and clear: if you want it, annex it, and eventually, Washington will approve.
The implausibility of this entire scenario ever coming together with Palestinian acquiescence is precisely what allows many Arab countries to agree to go to Bahrain, and possibly to pledge large amounts of aid and investment in the certainty that the political mechanisms for implementing such promises will never be created. That will leave a conference with no Palestinians, Arabs only looking to curry favor with the U.S. and no Israelis with the authority to commit Israel to any major initiative because they are on the eve of yet another election.
It's past time to postpone this absurd conference and to shelve the entire misconceived Kushner project. Then the next U.S. administration can try to undo the harm the Trump team has done to the very notion of Israeli-Palestinian peace.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Hussein Ibish is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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