West Asia peace plan all set to be unveiled next week, says Trump
JERUSALEM: US President Donald Trump said he plans to release the West Asia peace plan that he’s been promising since his 2016 campaign, promising it before Israeli leaders visit the White House on Tuesday.
“Sometime prior to that,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One when asked when the White House will put forward the plan. “We’ll probably release it a little bit prior to them coming.”
US vice-president Mike Pence invited Israeli political rivals Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz to Washington next week as the two leaders remain locked in a domestic political stalemate.
Pence announced the invitation during a visit to Israel. The president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has been preparing the peace plan since Trump took office.
The hurdles to any peace accord are legion: It would require a resolution of how much of the occupied West Bank - portions of which are densely populated with Jewish settlers - would remain under Israeli control, whether Palestinian refugees across the region would have the right to return to their ancestral lands and whether East Jerusalem could serve as a Palestinian capital.
That the US invited both Netanyahu and Gantz is a sign of the current dysfunction in Israeli politics. On March 2 the country will hold its third election in less than a year after two previous attempts resulted in no leader being able to cobble together a governing coalition.
Palestinian leaders have spurned talks with the Trump administration, citing what they have called a series of moves showing favour toward Israel. Those include moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israel sovereignty over the Golan Heights and proclaiming that Israeli settlements in the West Bank aren’t necessarily illegal.
“I’m sure they maybe will act negatively at first but it’s actually very positive for them,” Trump said on Thursday of the Palestinians. “But they have a lot of incentive to do it.”