A Conversation with Jared Kushner: TWI Soref Symposium 2019

[Applause] good evening everyone this is a very special evening I'm delighted all of you could join us for this discussion about the Trump administration's approach to Middle East peace we're going to spend the next 45 minutes in a bit of a strange conversation talking about something but not really talking about it because tonight unless we're gonna make even more news than I expect tonight is not the big reveal that day if it happens won't be for another month at the earliest but there is still quite a lot to talk about the Middle East peace process without actually talking about the Middle East peace plan so first I just want to extend again my thanks to you Jared for joining us for this occasion [Applause] thank you Rob and thank you for having me it's an honor to be here with all of you tonight so let's begin with what you're proposing is it no no I've listened carefully to the statements that you've made and your colleagues have made will it be a plan a vision a framework a proposal which one of these words is an accurate description of what we're going to hear so we could use a lot of different words to describe what it is that we've been working on but we're going away from all the typical diplomatic speak about how do you describe things at the high level what we've put together over the last years is I would say more of an in-depth operational document that shows what we think is possible and how the people can live together how security could work how interaction can work and and really how do you try to form the outline of what a brighter future could be you know I've worked very closely now for the last two years on this with Jason Greenblatt who's been absolutely phenomenal is an amazing lawyer and he's been a great partner in this and with obviously David Freedman who's been a great ambassador and also was a great lawyer in his time and with avi and what we've done is we've been able to we started by studying what had been tried and how people had approaches to date and why we thought in our estimation it hadn't been successful at a time so the first phase was really an assessment phase and we did that by studying the different efforts we read a lot of books we spoke to a lot of people we traveled around the region we spoke to the negotiators who had been doing this for a long time we spoke to the neighboring countries and we really tried to pull from them what they thought could be an appropriate solution to this and so as we got forward we started saying well you know a lot of the the discussion and a lot of the disagreement seems to be about these high-level concepts I always found in my business career that you know when you'd have a dispute on a contract you'd go into the details and you could usually resolve things because that's what you do when you're motivated to move forward and so we said why don't we just start writing these out this happened early on we were saying you know to state versus one state you're just you know you can't say to state and I realize that means different things to different people if you say to state it means one things to the Israelis it means one thing to the Palestinians so we said you know let's just not say it let's just let's just say let's let's work on the details of what this means and so we started writing down a document and we said start with five pages and mid to ten pages then to 20 pages than to 30 pages and we kept refining it as we would get more and more input along the way and so I think what we put together is a document that I do believe addresses a lot of these issues in a very detailed way probably in a more detailed way than has ever been done before and what hopefully that will do is show people that this is possible and if there are disagreements hopefully they can disagree about certain specifics as opposed to you know disagreeing about high-level concepts if you look at a lot of the past negotiations they're basically trying to wordsmith documents to basically not agree but not admit that they don't agree and that's not an acceptable that's not how you solve problems that's had you defer problems and you know I enjoy working for this president but one of the things I admire is that he's not gonna allow you to pretend like something solved when it's not solved his view is we should either solve it or we should admit that it's not solved he try to you know really work hard at trying to put a solution for it the second thing we started putting together was an economic vision for the region and what we did is we started looking at the divide in the region and you know when I was on the campaign all the experts were saying well you have the Sunnis and you have the Shia's and that's the big divide with the Arabs but what I see in the region is that the big divide now is you have leaders that are trying to empower their people and create more opportunity for them to have a better life and then you have leaders that are trying to repress their people and often using religion and other excuses as a reason to try and holding their people down and so when we looked at the Palestinians we said well what are the opportunities that they can have what's been holding them back economically and obviously you have the core issues because you need to resolve the core issues to be able to move forward but we started doing is building an economic vision for how do you take that region and push it forward in a more substantial way and so I think we built a very good business plan we studied what they did in Poland and how that was successful we studied South Korea we studied Japan we studied Singapore and then we studied the areas like Ukraine where they had a pretty good plan but there was not very good execution and a lot of the governance was off so what we will be able to put together is a solution that we believe is a good starting point for the political issues and then a outline for what economically can be done to to help these people start living a better life and I do believe this is that there is a greater division between the experts and and the people who who negotiate this and talk about this and work at the think tanks and work the negotiations and there is between the people I think the people fundamentally want to live together I think the people fundamentally want have better lives I think they want the kids to have jobs they want to be able to pay their mortgage and I think that that's a very important underlying I think everybody wants to live with dignity I think the Israelis want to know that they've got security that's very important for for this administration now Israel's security and I think if we work it well and we put it out in people look at it with a fresh perspective I think there'll be a lot of opportunity to start a new discussion and hopefully that leads to a breakthrough and and I will just say this and and is that this is a very hard problem this is probably one of the hardest problems maybe that exists in the world and when the president asks us to take this on you know Jason David myself he says no I want you guys to really try to solve this I don't want you to make an effort and then try to create a downsize you could blame somebody else if it fails he says I believe that this is an issue that needs to be solved he says I don't think if you solve this the rest of the region turns out well but I do think you can solve and fix the whole region without this being resolved and I do think that it is something that's held the region back and if you think about just the Middle East so you think about what China has been able to accomplish between 2001 and today they've built a you know an amazing economy they've built a great country they've taken hundreds of millions of people out of poverty if you look at the Middle East and what's happened with all the war and all the conflict and all the division they basically stayed in place maybe even gone backwards and if we can figure out how to change the paradigm and get people to focus on betterment of life and how do you create more opportunity and and and somehow we have to break this cycle I do think there's a lot of potential for them to get on a good path there's a lot of wealth there's a lot of resources where it's located strategically a lot of you know really great people and so we're finding reasons to be optimistic and we're giving it the best shot we can so let me ask you two wide questions the big Y and then the tactical why I know you started to answer the big why but I want to I want to go a little bit deeper recently at the time 100 event you explained that the administration had four big priorities in the Middle East the first three where I sit certainly make a lot of sense confronting Iran defeating Isis combating the ideology of radical Islamic extremism the question is about what comes up number four if you had said solving the world's worst humanitarian crisis Yemen okay if you had said solving the world's worst refugee crisis Syria okay what makes solving the israeli-palestinian crisis an important issue to be sure what makes that rise to the level of being at that high priority so I would think that if you would have gone back five six years and if you would have asked people what they thought was the biggest issue in the region they would have said it was this issue and I think that what I said at the at that last interview was that those were the four issues that we were outlining when we went to Saudi Arabia and the chose to take his first trip to Saudi Arabia and he thought that it was important to to really get everyone to come together to try to solve these issues and say that this is not America's responsibility this is not Saudi Arabia's responsibility this is all of our collective responsibility and I do think that on those first three issues we've made tremendous progress if you think about what the president's done to to get out of the jcpoa the Iran deal I think we've tried to do everything we can to make sure that all of the different areas where they're being aggressive whether it's Yemen whether it's whether it's Syria whether it's with Hamas whether it's Hezbollah to make sure that we limit their resources so that so that they're not able to export terror in the way that they have done and the administration has been very clear with Iran is that we want to be able to work with Iran but we want them to - to not be looking outward it once they focus on trying to make their country better and improving their lives we're happy to work with them on doing that but they can't be infringing and trying to destabilize the whole region and that's been a very very important issue for the president and again the meaning they chant death to Israel death to America the same thing that the Houthis do in Yemen so the Yemen issue I think is more of an offshoot of the Iran issue so I kind of put that in that that same box because that's really the root cause of what's happening there with the instability with regards to Isis when we came into this administration the Caliphate was very very large and Isis was was obviously in a stronger position and I think the president you know got together immediately it was one of the first priorities he set out and he said look we need a global coalition to figure out how to defeat this and and I think he worked very well with his generals he sat down he studied the problem very carefully and I think the progress we made there has unquestionably been beyond people's expectations I remember seeing the news during the campaign about all the different things we were seeing every day and it really was brutal and now that's basically gone in a large part the physical Caliphate the third thing was something that I personally was much more passionate about was with regards to you know the the the the ideology and and thinking about you know you can you can kill a terrorist you can kill a fighter but how do you make sure that this isn't just spawning more and you're not dealing with this problem for much longer time to come and I think that the work that we've been able to do with Saudi Arabia with a lot of the Arab countries and with a lot of the leaders to really figure out how do you get information out how do you win the war on the internet how do you make sure that you're monitoring very closely who's preaching what and making sure that people are restoring Islam to what it should be as a religion of peace and and as a religion of of Tolerance and so I think we've made progress in terms of that there's been some good leaders that have worked with the president there and so I think that the progress there is also very good in two years with regards to this issue again we see this as you know Israel is a very special country it's the only democracy in the region it's America's strongest ally they're a great military partner we do a lot of business with them in a lot of ways and so Israel's security is something that's very important to this country it's something that's very important to the president and it's something that we want to see we want to see that resolved and I do think that a lot of what we'll do here in order for Israel to be secure long term they need to resolve this issue I think it's very important you have to make compromises in order to do that I don't think anyone will question if we do ask Israel to make compromises in our proposal that we're gonna ask them to do things that would put them at risk security wise I don't think the president would take he would not take decisions himself that he would think would put America and the people who he represents a risk and he wouldn't expect another leader to do that but he also thinks that if you're able to help the Palestinian people have dignity and have opportunity and create a new paradigm and break this cycle he thinks that that's within the whole region's interest and also in America's interests we spend a lot of money in that region are our military cost is there there's a lot of threat that comes from that region and the more that we can lead towards stabilization I think that's a very important thing and Syria is a very important issue as well and I think that that's something you spend time working on and I know that secretary Pompeo has been working hard to try to find what the correct outcome is there and that's another one of the top priorities all right let me ask you the the tactical why which is why do you think the circumstances are right for a u.s. peace plan now administration officials have said from time to time that the plan wouldn't be presented until the time was right assuming that as has been reported that June 2019 is the time give or take what makes that the right time sure so when I got in people told me you know you're crazy to work on this it's not the right time this is impossible will never happen so I don't think there's ever a perfect time to do this but I do think what we've been able to do over the last couple of years is is put ourselves in a position where we do feel like now is a good time to put something out there I think that when we made the decision to recognize Jerusalem the president asked you know will this make your job easier or harder and the answer I gave him was I think short term it's probably harder because people will you know be more reactive and emotional they're not used to you know president that day is keeping his word taking tough decisions and and doing what he thinks is right in that regard and so I said you know this is gonna be a different thing I said but long-term I think it helps because what we need to start doing is just recognizing truths and I think that when we recognize Jerusalem that is a truth you know in Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and and and that would be part of any final agreement anyway and I think and I think that that was a very important component the same thing with recognizing the Golan Heights I mean the Israel's had gone on for 52 years it's been relatively peaceful since they've had it I mean Syria is kind of a mess right now I mean you've got a leader that's committed you know mass genocide and and the territories all disputed and broken up so I don't think there's really any question that the goal on when things are resolved that that it should be part of Israel and so we recognize that too and I think that we're in a position now obviously Prime Minister Netanyahu just wanted to think a very good election he'll build a hopefully a strong coalition and we'll work with him to see what we can do and I do think that in the Arab world there's a lot of there's a lot of impatience too with the Palestinian issue I mean the the cause is kind of running dry a little bit with regards to you know people have been funding this thing for a long time they've gotten more aid than any any group of people in history and what we have to show for it is really not much at this point unfortunately it's it's you know there are some people who've done very well and maybe those people like the situation where the aides coming in and it's enriching you know a few at the top but it hasn't trickled down to the people and and maybe that's been a disincentive for people to actually want to solve the issues so you have a lot of people who have been in charge of trying to solve it for a long time and they have not they've been perfect track record at not achieving a solution and maybe they like it that way I mean I see them attacking the deal they don't even know what's in it yet and and I think that that shows that maybe they want the status quo so what we want to do is put something out that we think is based on logic where unquestionably we can say that this will lead to the Palestinian people living living a much better life and we hope that people will act rationally and I do think that it'll be a test for the Arab countries and it'll be a test for the international community are they gonna be stuck in reflexive positions that don't make sense and that have not created peace or are they going to look at this for what it is study it and say this makes sense why don't you try to engage with it if you have you know problems with these details you know why don't you go sit down with them try to change it but I do think this is a problem that deserves to be solved and I am hopeful that you know the leadership from both sides will will sit and try to you know figure out based on the framework we provide how they can move forward so you just made a reference to the leadership from both sides there's really no ignoring the fact that that one of the leadership's loves you and the other leadership publicly vilifies the administration is that an environment from your experience that's conducive to negotiating success I would say that doing it the old way hasn't really worked so you know our view was is you know we are who we are and we're gonna say what we say we're gonna do what we think is right and and people will react positively to it or they will react negatively to it and but at least people know that we're gonna be honest with what we do and again I think that hopefully people will be surprised when they see this that we've tried very hard to take a very very difficult set of issues and you know I said this before but I had a business mentor who whenever he'd have to take a tough decision would make a t-chart you know reasons to do something and reasons not to do something and I think that when both sides look at this if they would make the tea chart and say you know what am I giving versus what am i gaining I think they'll see there's a lot more benefits to doing this than not doing it and that's I think the place you have to start now when I speak to people you know the lot of the stated position of Arab countries is what we're gonna do something along the lines of the Arab Peace Initiative and I said okay that was a very noble idea in 2002 when they put it out but if that would have been a recipe to create peace it would have made peace 17 years ago and so you know whatever deal is gonna make I mean you have the Palestinian position and you have the Israeli position and whatever is gonna be resolved has to be somewhat in the middle and so I think both leadership SAR probably a little bit nervous to talk about what their potential compromise solutions could be so our hope is that maybe we help them get a little bit closer by putting this out so let me let me pursue that line of questioning for a moment so you and Jason Greenblatt have said that the plan will answer all the core questions and it will provide revision of how life could be better for Palestinians and how the Israelis can achieve what they want most security first Clark let's clarify this when the president announced the move of the embassy from Jerusalem move and I supported by the way mr. Tate his statement included the following cloak quote we are not taking a position on any final status issues including the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem or the resolution of contested borders those questions are up to the parties involved so just to be clear you're going to propose answers to those final status issues is that you will yes now let's look at that equation better life for Palestinians securities for Israel for the Palestinians it sounds an awful lot like quality of life enhancement that sounds like money a lot of money whose money are we talking about rumor has it that Middle East countries haven't been lining up to pony up to support this will there be a substantial American an tying up in order to trigger larger sums from others how substantial are we talking about yeah so since it's not my money to put out it's really it's other people's money it's a it's it's like that I and again you have to be very mindful of rumors I mean one thing that I'm very proud of that we've been able to accomplish in two years is we've been able to keep this very close and we've had a leaky environment here in Washington where a lot of things leak but nothing's leaked from my team and nothing's leaked on this file and I think that's something that we're very proud of I think that that's built a lot of trust for us with a lot of our counterparts you know whether it's in Israel whether it's the Middle Eastern countries I think they've all seen that after talking with us directly nothing's ever made it to the press and I think that over time build more trust and allowed us to have more productive discussions because they're willing to discuss things more freely which is very very important so I wouldn't go off of what you say look I think it goes like this we have to decide do we want to keep throwing money into into a situation that perpetuates a situation and then even makes it worse I mean one of the things that I thought it was very funny was they said Oh which should we were accused of trying to separate the Palestinian people and then I was reading a book on the Hamas POTUS but and they were basically accusing Hamas of the exact same things that they were accusing us so you know about 10 years earlier and so I think there's a lot of different situations where the situation's just gone back and bad in a very very bad way what I do believe is important for the improvement of people's lives is you need an environment where people can feel like they're able to invest right so the reality is I see so many well intended programs through the different aid agencies and through different private donors and they get some entrepreneurs together or they get an industrial zone or whatever it is but the reality is is until you establish borders establish security have rule of law have transparency eliminate corruption really enforce property rights and put people in a position where people have an environment where they can make investments and feel comfortable about it you're never gonna really see that economy rise and you're never gonna see people's living standards rise and you're never gonna see people start to have the the self-determination and the better lives that they've been talking about and wanting to get for a long time so so I think that we have a real chance to do this but I think the two have to come together I have spoken to a lot of countries about supporting this I've spoken with some members of Congress about supporting this and and we'll see I mean I think that it's something that hopefully I can get people to sign up for and so far I would say people are very happy with the work product we've put together I think they think it's very in-depth they think it's something that let me says when you see it you'll understand why it took us so long and I think that that's something that that hopefully people will see as a thoughtful effort and and again I I'll say this too cuz I see you know a lot of commentary and in Washington there's a lot of people with opinions obviously but what I would say is that people should be it's it's it's very easy to want to sound like a wise man in this business and to and to talk about why this is hard or why this could fail or what you know we're doing wrong but the reality is is that I say my favorite quote that I read about the Middle East was somebody said that in the Middle East the pessimists are usually right the optimists are usually wrong but it's the optimist that drive the change and I think that what hopefully people do is they'll look at all this stuff and they'll say you know we want to help you push this forward we think this is a good idea we want to push both sides to figure out how to move forward instead of allowing them to find excuses to not move forward and I think that that's where we want to get to and I think that this framework will hopefully be a framework is because look this has been stuck this has been stuck for you know a long time you know there hasn't been a lot of fresh ideas there hasn't been any breakthroughs in a long time and the reality is that the situation is getting more and more untenable and so we didn't create a lot of the problems I showed up here two years ago but I was given the assignment of trying to find a solution between the two sides and I think what we'll put forward is a framework that I think is realistic it's based on its execution of all its executable and it's something that that I do think you know will lead to both sides being much better off and that was the way I approached it you briefly referred a few moments ago to the concept of state and I want to ask you about this ten years ago in a historic speech Prime Minister Netanyahu outlined his call for a demilitarized Palestinian state he said quote in my vision of peace to free peoples living side-by-side in this small land with good neighborly relations mutual respect each with the flag and anthem and a government does that still apply in your view like I said well we're gonna put out a very extensive document and I'm gonna let you decide and I'm sure you'll write something very interesting on it what it comes [Applause] alright alright alright all right let me ask you a different question so during his election campaign Prime Minister Netanyahu committed himself to begin the process of annexation of Israeli territory at some point something that he had never publicly said before what is the administration's view on Israeli annexation of territory in the West Bank would you have a problem if this was done before the plan was presented have you told this to the Prime Minister so I have not discussed this with the Prime Minister and and I do hope that that what will happen is is he forms his government we've been giving him space to do that I do imagine that once there is a government formed will will start engaging on this process and we'll have a discussion and I do hope that what we're doing I said I hope both sides will take a real look at it the Israeli side and the Palestinian side before any unilateral steps are made and I hope that they'll look at it and suss it and see if they do believe that this is a pathway for a better future so is it is it a fair statement to say that one can either have unilateral annexation or a negotiated solution but not both you know one thing I saw early on in this is that is that there was a lot of our team we'd have a lot of issues that would come up every day and I think a lot of maybe the past people have worked on this file can relate to this where every day you're called on a different issue well you know they're doing this or they're doing that and I said to my team I said guys you know our job where we're not on the rabbit chasing business and they said well these are no rabbits these are big issues and I said well you know our job is to try to find a solution between the two countries and that's really the disease a lot of the things that are happening now are symptoms of the disease and our job is not to deal with the symptoms that's for them to deal with between each other but that's not our job as in the in the role that we're playing we believe our job is to try to propose something that could actually cure the disease and if you create the disease a lot of the symptoms go away and so again that's what we've been focused on you know there's a lot of distractions there's we remind ourselves every day and we've done this for the last two years that there's about a thousand ways to fail on this file and we've tried our best every day to make the right decisions to try to push forward and give ourselves the highest probability of doing something that can make a difference and achieve a good outcome and try to avoid decisions and situations that will give us a pathway to achieving a bad outcome but you know again if you were just taking the smart money bet the smart money bet is that this is a tough problem and it's been around for a long time but you know I do hope we're able to change the paradigm and put something forward that gets both sides to very seriously look at the facts and and and and try to navigate a way where they can allow their people to be better off for the long term and that's very important to the president that's very important to me it's very important to Jason it's very important to David so you use the the metaphor of curing a disease which is which is a pretty high bar for success and I want to ask you about your definition of success is success actually solving resolving this problem as you suggested is success the middle bar of getting the two sides just to engage on what you propose is success the lower bar of getting a quorum of Arab states to say this is serious and worthy of discussion what your view is a legitimate reasonable bar of success yeah so you're being very Washington with this question because right but you know again I'm not thinking about it that way our goal is to go in we were asked to try and solve a problem and so you know one of the things that the president's good at is he's good at coming into a situation and being very flexible from the beginning to the end of it and my view is that what we've done is we've tried to develop a path we've we've assessed it we've tried to tailor make a solution you know one thing we've done very differently than what's been done in the past is you know I remember in my first meeting out I met with the Israeli negotiator I met with the Palestinian negotiator and then I asked them I said well let's take these issues right let's on this one issue what is an outcome that you think you could accept that you think the other side could live with and he says well to do this yeah go back to 1917 the 1948 the 1967 the 1973 and I just said you know look at it we don't want to go through the history on this I just curious here today in 2017 what's an outcome that works it's okay well the way to solve it isn't you get two people together need to get four people together you need to go to AA you need to go to Madrid I said I don't want to talk about process you know I said I just want to come up with what a potential outcome could be here and what I realize is that it's very tempting to kind of get involved in process and get involved in history and fight about things that are not operational to people's lives and what we've tried to do is focus on a solution that we think is is viable and then the last phase is trying to figure out what an appropriate process is to try and achieve that as much as possible so look I think at minimum hopefully people will look at this think it's serious it will change the discussion I think the discussion has gotten stale I think nothing's worked and I do think that our our approach has been is that if we are gonna feel we don't want to fail doing it the same way it's been done in the past and again the presidents you want to be original in your failure well hopefully the goal is not to fail but but but but I think that what we want to do is figure out how to do this in an intuitive way you have three people who are not from politics not from diplomacy and and what we've tried to do is do this in a very rational way and hopefully that it's different and again I do think that both sides will look at this hopefully both sides think that it's a very serious proposal hopefully it stimulates discussion stimulates thought and maybe it leads to some breakthroughs that have been elusive for a very very long time and meaning and again you know our number one goal is we want the palestinian people's lives to get better and we want we want Israel's security to be stronger and we want both sides to be able to find a pathway to come together and figure out how to bridge some of these previously unbridgeable divides just on the equation you just laid out Palestinian lives to be better Israeli security to be secured is it is it not unreasonable for a Palestinian to hear that that equation and to say where is my political aspiration in that equation however I define my political aspiration is it at least reasonable for them to say I just don't hear if I'm a Palestinian I just don't hear my political aspiration in the equation of my life being better and in the Israeli security being secure I think look I'll just say this very straight which is that I think that the average Palestinian doesn't have a ton of faith in their government they don't have a ton of faith in their our neighbors they don't have a ton of faith in Israel they don't have a ton of faith in America right they've been lied to for a long time by a lot of people and I think that they're at a place where I don't think they know what to believe or who to believe and so it's an unfortunate situation but they've been pawns in a greater greater game in the Middle East for a long time I mean you have a lot of Palestinians that were kicked out of Arab countries for whatever reason and put into the situation they're in Arab countries who claim to fight for them and care about them wouldn't take them into their countries when they were refugees so you've got a very twisted history there and I think that you've got you know current situation where you've got you know Hamas obviously in Gaza which is which has just driven that place into the ground and it's it's really I think the people are hostages to terror organization and that's an unfortunate situation and then in the West Bank I think you have people who are pretty repressed and again I think that they question whether the leadership is actually looking after their interests or not and so now again I think that for the Palestinians the political aspirations are important I do believe what we'll put out will address a lot of their political aspirations and a lot of their dignity that is important to us but I just think that they're at a point where they're not able to live the lives that they think they deserve because a lot of this has kind of screwed it up for them and I do think that we think about that a lot and again instead of coming at this from the political lens and say okay let's jump into this and do the political negotiation that's been done before in the same way that it's been done before let's focus on the Palestinian people and we spoke to a lot of Palestinian people spoke to Palestinian business leaders we spoke to a lot of people and we said what is it that you're looking for and we tried to figure out how to design something that we think can be very acceptable to them and the question will be whether the leadership has the courage to try and jump into it and try to achieve it and whether they have the intent for preservation or whether they have the intent for actually betterment of the lives of their people but again the strategic advantage we have now is we know what's in the plan we believe that it's it's virtuous we believe that it's something that is beneficial to both sides and it's been very disheartening for us to see that the Palestinian leadership has basically been attacking a plan that they don't know what it is as opposed to reaching out if they truly cared about making the lives of the Palestinian people better I think they would have taken different decisions over the last year and maybe over the last 20 years but that's just my decision but that kind of doesn't matter right you know the the neat thing about this is we're gonna put it out everyone has a fresh opportunity to try to engage with it and when we put it out we'll be able to see what happens and people you know I've speculated in a million ways who will be supportive who will be not either we don't know I mean we're talking to people we've had a lot of discussions I think that people will be surprised what's in it but I hope that people act rationally which is they take what we put out they read it they look at it they look at it for what it is not for what it's not and they say has there been any better ideas but for one you know is this real could this work and then based on that they push forward and and so I mean I we're doing the best we can and I just think that again it's not like there's a door B that's been presented or that we've taken away from them or that's existed that that has led them to achieve you know things that have been so good for them so we're we're just being realistic and I think that that's unfortunately the situation as we found it but we're doing our best to try to find a solution that I believe will have a lot of opportunity for for both sides you referred to the a moment ago to laying out the plan I just want to ask you briefly about the rollout of the plan since we're not gonna get into details of what's in the plane it was good to go through the details is the plan going to be a surprise to Prime Minister Netanyahu to to the leaders of Jordan and in Syria and not Syria Saudi Arabia and Egypt are they going to be reading about it the same day we all read about it or are they going to be briefed ahead of time and will you will you welcome their input at all before the final final version is delivered yeah so again today we've kept the details very close and and the way that you know we've kept it very close is that nothing's lead out and I think that's been a great asset you know we're making the calls now I mean we're we're finally deciding the process how we're gonna do it but I do think that all of our allies and partners will be very well consulted and I do think that hopefully we're putting people in the Opera in the position to make sure that they can be as supportive as possible but that's not based on relationship that's based on substance and I do think that we'll figure out what it will be but again the good thing about what I do is that you know who I speak with and when we speak to them you know the people who need to know know about it but the people who don't need to know usually don't know about it so that's good it's it you said so earlier the smart money is on not success after all you you're hoping to accomplish what every president since Nixon and every secretary of state since Kissinger has in one way shape or form tried to do but the smart money is not on success especially given the high bar that you've outlined for success is actual resolution of the conflict have you factored into your thinking the implications of failure failures its own has its own set of outcomes and has its own impact on the various parties what do you think about the potential implications of failure one thing that's been different for me about being in Washington is that you know everyone in Washington can complain about the status quo and then when you try to when you try to put something in play to make something better then all of a sudden everyone goes crazy about all the things that could go wrong and they talk about you know how things could also get worse and look the reality of life is that if you want to make something better you have to take a risk that it can get worse and you know our goal is to figure out how do we mitigate the downside and how do we do everything possible to try to achieve the upside and I just think that what we're doing here is is is we've been and we've doing this for two years we've just been telling the truth and and again I think that with our actions we're telling the truth we're dealing with reality and when you do that I think that it usually leads to to a better place and so we're pretty confident that we'll put this out it'll be a good basis for a discussion again success can look like a lot of different things it can look like an agreement it can look like a better discussion it could lead to closer cooperation maybe we resolve a couple issues maybe not but you know I just think that the situation is such right now that that I just think that that it has to move forward and I I do think that not trying is is is a big problem to and you know III do think too and I learned this in business and I think people in politics have a harder time with this but sometimes doing nothing is a decision doing nothing is a decision and and we don't think that that's usually an acceptable decision unless we're doing it intentionally and I do think here that the status quo and where it's headed to is not the ideal situation and we do hope that what we put out has a lot of different pathways that could potentially make this better so just just on this point because a very wise some will even say brilliant observer of the peace process recently wrote and I paraphrase issuing the Middle East peace plan in the current environment is a lose-lose proposition if rightists and Israel build upon a Palestinian rejection to push for annexation the plan could unleash forces that drive a stake in the heart of us-israel relations while destroying Israeli Palestinian security cooperation perhaps even the Palestinian Authority is that at least a potential outcome I just want to say it's so much easier being a writer than it is to be somebody trying to actually solve a problem you know it will be what it will be and I think that again we spend our time just trying to focus on what do we believe is the highest probability path that we can take to create a good outcome and how do we do everything to mitigate bad outcomes and you know one thing I've seen in in kind of you know in the building I work it is that it's not like you're faced every day with with the problem and they say okay well this is the good option and this is the bad option it's usually this is the bad option and this is the really bad option and you're trying to figure out on a lot of these very tough problems which again you're inheriting you're coming in trying to assess it we've inherited a lot of problems on a lot of issues and again I've admired the way that the president and his national security team not just on this issue but if you look globally we came into what we felt was a strategy free environment and I do think that the president with with HR McMaster and now with John Bolton have kind of taken the world and said these are our different priorities we put together a national security strategy we put together integrated strategies on how to get there the president's taking on a lot of different files at once and he can only do that because he's got a very strong vision he's got a ton of energy and I think he's got a very good team that's very well coordinated and now you know whether it's secretary Pompeo whether it's John Bolton you know whether it's myself on a couple files whether it's you know Bob light Heiser Steve minuchin or Wilbur Ross dealing with all the different trade issues dealing with all the different conflict issues dealing with all of our national security issues I do think we have you know good team working with strategies working coordinated to try and figure out how do we create the best outcomes possible and you know where is looking you know America is is a great country you know I've I've come to to really appreciate what our places in the world what our influence can be in the world I think that especially on the trading side I think our presidents brought a fresh approach which was badly needed I think that a lot of these trade deals that we're doing should have been rebalanced a long time ago and I think it took somebody disruptive like this president and a great trade negotiator like Bob light Heiser to come in and really shake things up and figure out how do you do it and each one of these trade negotiations - I mean people were predicting all the things that could go wrong and you put tariffs on and there's retaliation but the reality is that the president understands how to calibrate risk and he understands the power of the American market and he has not gotten us into any Wars and he's been able to he's trying to figure out how to draw us down from wars but he's been able to figure out how to reestablish America's place in the world but figure out how to balance some of these relationships that are out of whack and so I guess that's maybe a little bit of a rambling answer from from what you asked but I think that we view it every day like we come in we look at all the different challenges and we're trying to figure out how to achieve an outcome and again it's very easy to prognosticate and talk about how you know everything you do has the potential go wrong but we've got a lot of really smart people in the government and everything we do is peer-reviewed and and we challenge each other we do it respectfully now whereas it used to happen in the press maybe in the beginning with some of the different people but now it's it's a very collaborative group not everyone agrees with each other but the president likes it that way and and ultimately at the end of the day there's one decision-maker and that's the president so this is precisely where I want to end our conversation with just a couple of final quick questions so as the president read the plan so the president has been involved from the very beginning and and again this is one he asked me to work on because it was an issue he wanted to see engaged with and so one thing working for this president it's it's it's absolutely amazing because he's got I think he's definitely increased the metabolism of government in the sense that he he's got so many different cabinet secretaries and and and administration officials working on so many different files and he's on top of all of us so he's involved with the details he's been pushing us we've been recent porting back to him with regularity he's read a lot of the parts of it I mean he hasn't seen the latest draft because we've still been refining but the president's been very involved in creating this and creating the strategy and and he's a very hands-on leader and that's uh that's been a lot of fun to work with him on it cuz this is one that he does care about you would like to see us go forward with Anna in a good way so lastly some time before you go public else I assume there will be some oval office meeting or a mar-a-lago family dinner perhaps where the president turns to you and asks okay Jared honestly what's your opinion this plan is going to have my name on it is this going to be a winner you know I like winners I really I really hate losers which is this we don't have to do it is it worth it so when you work for a president you try hard not to disappoint but you can disappoint when you work for your father-in-law you can't disappoint so so I so I think I've established a good track record now on all the different tasks he's given me I've come back with results and I've come back with good advice and and I do think that this is something that I do think he'll be proud of this is something that I think will be a document that I think we'll be elevating the discussion on an issue that's hard and and I think that when you're in the White House I think the biggest mistake is not to try to solve hard problems and what I've learned on criminal justice reform what I learned doing the the Mexico Canada deal which again everyone said we were never gonna get deal with Mexico and then you know last minute we got to deal with Mexico and then everyone said well you didn't get a deal with Canada you'll never get a deal with Canada and then we got a deal with Canada and I did the same on criminal justice and and now people say oh well you know just because you got criminal justice why do you think you can work on immigration and I said well if you're in the white house where we are you're supposed to try hard to solve hard problems and if you're not spending your time trying to solve hard problems then you're wasting your time and I think that this president is not afraid to fail at things and he's not somebody who's sitting there saying well what's the political calculus on this or that he's saying this is what I think is right this is what I think is wrong I think that's what the American people like about him and he's willing to let us swing big at hard problems as long as we're doing it in a smart and responsible way and so I do think this is something that the president will be proud of I do think this is something that hopefully the community will will look at and and and look I think that hopefully people people should root for this to succeed I mean people shouldn't want this to succeed I think people should want people to take these issues that maybe have held them apart for a long time and say okay you know what both parties have to have to give a little bit but you'll gain a lot more than you give and that's how you make deals and and compromise is important and and that's a noble thing and so I think that the president will lay out a framework that I think is very defensible that I think is something that has a lot of new ideas in it and is something that that I think he'll be very proud of and hopefully it does lead to some breakthroughs so I personally am very honored that he asked me to do this it's been very interesting working on this vow I'm doing a lot of things these days I never thought would be doing in my life this is not kind of the plan I had but but I think it's it's an honor to work on it and if we can make breakthroughs that can help people live better lives and live safer lives then I think there's nothing more noble than trying to pursue peace between people even though it's really hard ladies and gentlemen [Applause]

Channel: WashingtonInstitute

Views: 4,661

Rating: 4.032258 out of 5

Keywords: Kushner, trump, palestinians, israel, peace process, middle east, saudi arabia

Id: WyDnssIFfbY

Length: 49min 53sec (2993 seconds)

Published: Tue May 07 2019