Trump Administration Pressuring Israel to Move Ahead With Peace Deal, Senior Israeli Minister Says

T. Belman. Contrast this article with Trump White House Tries to Build Support in D.C. for Mideast Peace Talks in which it was reported that Greenblatt assured the OU and the RJC “that while the United States is committed to helping the parties reach an agreement, ultimately the parties must agree to the terms of the agreement and that the U.S. will not impose a deal on either party.” But apparently it doesn’t mean that Trump won’t force Israel to stop building and to allow Arab construction even in Qalqilya. To my mind this is imposing an agreement on Israel.

Day before Kushner visit to Israel and as Netanyahu meets Trump envoy, finance minister Moshe Kahlon says U.S. feels deal is possible, but notes ‘sides not ripe’ for peace


Minister Moshe Kahlon gestures as he speaks at an event in Ofakim, southern Israel May 29, 2017.

A day ahead of the arrival of U.S. President Donald Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner in Israel for talks in Jerusalem and Ramallah, Israel’s finance minister said that the American administration is pressuring Israel to move forward on reaching a peace deal with the Palestinians.

“There’s mounting American pressure to advance a deal,” Moshe Kahlon told a conference in central Israel on Tuesday. “Something has happened. The American government feels it can reach an agreement, maybe because the good ties with the Israeli government allow Trump more influence than was possible during Obama’s term,” he said.

Kahlon made the statements as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with U.S. special envoy Jason Greenblatt. The two-hour meeting between the two was intended to lay the groundwork for the meeting between Netanyahu and Kushner on Wednesday. Their meeting was also attended by Molcho and Israel’s ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer. Netanyhu’s office refused to divulge the content of the meeting.

U.S. special envoy Jason Greenblatt and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jerusalem, June 20, 2017.

Ahead of their meeting, Greenblatt met with Netanyahu’s senior aide, Isaac Molcho, and held meetings in Ramallah with top aides to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Kahlon noted that he thinks Netanyahu is interested in renewing peace talks with the Palestinians. He stressed that the solution to the conflict was two states for two people, but said he was skeptical of whether the sides were ripe for reaching a permanent agreement at this point.

“Everyone understands that in the end there will be two states, but no one wants to say that they understand that,” said Kahlon. “At the end of this process, that’s what will happen in our region. I don’t see it happening tomorrow, but at the level of vision, that’s what will happen. I think that the Palestinians aren’t ready for a political agreement. I got that impression from conversations with them. Who’s right: us or them? The truth is somewhere in the middle. They themselves say: Let’s get through these years. We have internal problems, problems with Gaza, etc. I don’t see them going now in the direction of an agreement.”

Kushner will meet Wednesday in Jerusalem with Netanyahu and in Ramallah with Palestinian President Abbas in order to hear from the two how they would like to move forward toward a renewal of the peace process.

Kushner and Greenblatt also want to hear the two leaders’ positions on various central issues, like borders, security, refugees, Jerusalem, settlements and others, in order to map out the differences between the sides on each issue. One of the ideas being considered in the White House is to formulate an American document of principals for solving these central issues on the base of renewing peace talks.

Greenblatt and Kushner’s meetings with Netanyahu come as land was prepared Tuesday for the construction of a new settlement “Amichai” for those evacuated from the illegal outpost of Amona. In the morning, Netanyahu tweeted that he is the first prime minister in decades to establish a new settlement in the West Bank. He added that “there hasn’t been, nor will there be a better government” for the settlement enterprise than that which he currently leads.

June 20, 2017 | 11 Comments »

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11 Comments / 11 Comments

  1. @ Abolish_public_education:
    A million Indians died during Partition because Ghandi forced the British out without a state and an army to enforce the peace. Without a state of Israel, there would be 6 million more dead Jews. not that Ghandi would have cared. See:

    “The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.”

    http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/lsquo-the-jews-rsquo-by-gandhi

    “What do you feel is the most acceptable solution to the Palestine problem?

    The abandonment wholly by the Jews of terrorism and other forms of violence.”

    http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/gandhi-s-answer-to-question-by-united-press-of-america-june-1947

    “Do the Muslims claim Palestine, or will they restore it to the Jews who are the original owners?

    The Muslims claim Palestine as an integral part of Jazirat-ul-Arab. They are bound to retain its custody, as an injunction of the Prophet. But that does not mean that the Jews and the Christians cannot freely go to Palestine, or even reside there and own property. What non-Muslims cannot do is to acquire sovereign jurisdiction. The Jews cannot receive sovereign rights in a place which has been held for centuries by Muslim powers by right of religious conquest. The Muslim soldiers did not shed their blood in the late War for the purpose of surrendering Palestine out of Muslim control. I would like my Jewish friends to impartially consider the position of the seventy million Muslims of India. As a free nation, can they tolerate what they must regard as a treacherous disposal of their sacred possession?”

    http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/notes-in-young-india-by-gandhi-april-1921

  2. @ Abolish_public_education:
    Actually, that was the original two state solution and would be a good idea but it’s not that he means. He means more salami tactics with Jews forced into a smaller and smaller, less and less defensible ghetto. He means Oslo coming to fruition which is sheer fantasy leading to more Jews being murdered and living in overcrowded conditions or homeless.

  3. @ Sebastien Zorn:
    We all know now what an anti-semite FDR was and how he passively collaborated in the Shoah from day one. But, I just learned that he was a more of a mixed bag, which goes a long way to explaining why so many American Jews supported him. He used the Smith Act (which was gutted by the Supreme Court in 1957 leading to all of our troubles since) to prosecute ant-semites.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_Act

    Another reason why Israel must disregard the wishes of American Jews.

  4. Village idiot, Ehud Barak trots out the usual inflammatory self-hating blood libels:

    “Barak: Trump in favor of Palestinian state
    Former PM says Netanyahu’s concerns not understood by the US, Israel being led towards Apartheid.”

    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/231328

    Personally, if we don’t have the guts to get rid of them all by any means necessary, I think Apartheid would be a big improvement. Apartheid is one of the most stable forms of government, history shows, as long as the ruling people doesn’t allow self-doubt to creep in. So, you need strong sedition laws and the abolition of academic tenure as well as academic, media and judicial independence. If that’s their definition of democracy then to who needs it.

  5. Yawn another speculative article on peace talks. That is correct no one is talking because both sides know that they will not agree to the other sides maximum. Neither side trusts the other.

    The Palestinians do not agree to a Jewish State they want Israel destroyed and not as a peaceful neighbor. Trump who is a middle east neophyte does not get the basics of the situation, so he pushing without a clue what will happen.

  6. Everyone understands that in the end there will be two states

    Because everybody knows how well statism has worked in the past.

    I highly doubt it, but this clown could mean one Jewish state (expanded to its boundaries of antiquity), and one large, pan-Arab state (encompassing all the present, Arab states).

  7. I do not do “ha’aretz” which is a close relative to, in fact the publish in common with the New York Times.
    It is 100% Netanyahu’s drive for his Nobel that formed the wet bed for the present situation. Should we be really led by a true leader, we would have President’s Trump support.

  8. If Israeli government was not playing the game, the world would not pressure us into the idiotic peace process.
    Declare that all of the land from the River to the Sea is ours and that Pals are the occupiers and you’ll find that Trump will support us. And so will many others.