Abbas upbeat ahead of first meeting with Trump
RAMALLAH, West Bank — The election of President Donald Trump unnerved Palestinian officials.
He appointed a financial patron of Israeli settlements as ambassador to Israel. He promised to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to the disputed city of Jerusalem. And he appeared to back off the long-standing U.S. commitment to a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
And yet, as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas gears up for his first meeting with Trump at the White House today Palestinian officials in Ramallah insist on seeing the diplomatic glass as half full.
Abbas told a U.S. envoy in March that he believes a “historic” peace deal is possible.
At the time of Trump’s inauguration in January, the Palestinians were much more jittery.
For weeks after the election, there had been no direct contact between Trump’s aides and Palestinian officials. Politicians in Israel’s right-wing government were declaring plans for an independent Palestinian state a thing of the past. And Palestinians were bracing for Trump to make good on his campaign pledge to move the embassy.
But an announcement on the embassy never came. Instead, Trump invited Abbas to the White House during a phone conversation in March. Several days later, presidential envoy Jason Greenblatt met with Abbas and groups from Palestinian civil society in Ramallah.
Although Palestinian officials note that the new U.S. president and his administration have barely uttered the words “two-state solution,” Trump has spoken repeatedly about brokering the “ultimate” deal between Israelis and Palestinians.
“The fear has dissipated,” said Elias Zananiri, a Palestine Liberation Organization official in charge of outreach to the Israeli public.
Zananiri said the main item on Abbas’ agenda at the White House is to learn from Trump how he intends to accomplish that “ultimate achievement.”
“We want to hear about the substance, rather than emotion,” he said.
In the weeks leading up to the meeting, Abbas has made stops in Egypt and Jordan to get support from their respective leaders, President Abdel-Fattah elSissi and King Abdullah II, for a Palestinian state.
There has been widespread speculation that the Trump administration wants to organize a summit to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. In an interview last month with the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, Abbas said he would meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if Trump were to act as host.
Regardless of whether the meeting between Abbas and Trump produces an announcement on peace negotiations, the appearance of the two leaders together will be viewed as an achievement for the 82-year-old Abbas, who is struggling to remain relevant on the domestic and international stage.
Abbas, who hasn’t paid a visit to the White House in years, is grappling with flagging approval ratings, rising speculation about a potential successor from within his Fatah party, Israeli attacks on his credibility as a partner for peace and a 10-year standoff with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip.
The meeting with Trump, experts say, will bolster Abbas’ standing as the main Palestinian interlocutor on international politics.
“If you were Mahmoud Abbas, and you were facing imminent irrelevance, things have picked up now that you’re meeting the president,” said Khaled Elgindy, a former adviser to the Palestinian Authority leadership on peace negotiations who is now a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.