Arab politicians and commentators greeted U.S. President Donald Trump's 50 billion U.S. dollar Middle East economic vision with a mixture of derision and exasperation. From Sudan to Kuwait, commentators and citizens denounced the “peace to prosperity” proposals using strikingly similar terms, "colossal waste of time," "non-starter," "dead on arrival," although some U.S. allies in the Gulf called for it to be given a chance.

The “peace to prosperity” economic summit will be held in Bahrain from June 25 to 26 in cooperation with the United States.

The 50 billion U.S. dollar “peace to prosperity” plan, set to be presented by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner at the conference, envisions a global investment fund that includes 179 infrastructure and business projects. However, Palestinians on Saturday criticized its approach toward lifting the Palestinian and neighboring Arab economies and reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

"We don't need the Bahrain meeting to build our country, we need peace, and the sequence of (the plan) - economic revival followed by peace is unrealistic and an illusion," Palestinian Finance Minister Shukri Bishara said on Sunday.

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Palestinians reject U.S. 'economy first' peace plan

In Israel, Tzachi Hanegbi, a Cabinet member close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, described Palestinians' rejection of the "peace to prosperity" plan as tragic.

The lack of a political solution, which Washington has said would be unveiled later, prompted rejection not only from Palestinians but in Arab countries with which Israel would seek normal relations.

Egyptian liberal and leftist parties slammed the conference as an attempt to "consecrate and legitimise" occupation of Arab land and said in a joint statement that any Arab participation would be "beyond the limits of normalisation" with Israel.

While the precise outline of the political plan has been shrouded in secrecy, officials briefed on it say Kushner has jettisoned the two-state solution — the long-standing worldwide formula that envisages an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority is boycotting the Bahrain meeting, saying only a political solution will solve the problem. It said Kushner's "abstract promises" were an attempt to bribe Palestinians into accepting Israeli occupation.

The White House has not invited the Israeli government to Bahrain.

Lebanon and Iraq will not attend the conference.

“Those who think that waving billions of dollars can lure Lebanon, which is under the weight of a suffocating economic crisis, into succumbing or bartering over its principles are mistaken,” the parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, said.

Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Shi’ite group Hezbollah, which wields significant influence over the government, previously called the plan “a historic crime” that must be stopped.

Thousands of people marched through the Moroccan capital, Rabat, on Sunday to express their solidarity with the Palestinians and their opposition to Kushner’s plan.

“We came here to speak in one voice as Moroccans and express our rejection of all conspiracies that target the Palestinian cause,” Slimane Amrani, vice secretary general of the kingdom’s co-ruling Islamist PJD party, told Reuters.

Arab analysts believe Kushner’s economic plan is an attempt to buy off opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land with a multibillion-dollar bribe to pay off the neighboring hosts of millions of Palestinian refugees to integrate them.

After Israel’s creation in 1948, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon absorbed the most Palestinian refugees, with some estimates that they now account for around 5 million.

U.S.-allied Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, will take part in the Bahrain gathering along with officials from Egypt, Jordan and Morocco. 

An Egyptian delegation headed by a deputy finance minister will participate in a Bahrain summit, according to the Egyptian state news agency MENA.

Saudi Arabia's minister of state for foreign affairs, Adel Jubeir, said anything that improves the Palestinians' situation should be welcomed but that addressing the political process in resolving the conflict with Israel was "extremely important."

Yet even in the Gulf, backing for Kushner's plan is limited.

"The deal of the century is a ... one-sided concession, the Arab side, while the occupier wins everything: land, peace and Gulf money," said Kuwaiti parliamentarian Osama Al-Shaheen.

(With input from Reuters)