Palestinian investor won't attend Bahrain summit

In another setback for US peace efforts, Bashar Masri, a major Palestinian industrialist with vast business holdings throughout the West Bank, said he had turned down an invitation to the conference in Bahrain late next month, where Washington is expected to reveal the economic side of its peace plan.

“I will not participate in this conference, and none of the representatives of our companies will participate,” he writes on Facebook. “We reaffirm our clear position: We will not deal with any event outside the Palestinian national consensus.”

The Palestinians, who have been boycotting the US administration for over a year, have repeatedly expressed fears that the White House will try to buy them off with large sums of investment in exchange for freezing their demands for an independent state. They believe the US is trying to rally support from other Arab countries to bully them into accepting a plan they see as unacceptable.

— with AP