Abbas adviser says Trump visit could reopen path to talks

Meanwhile, Abbas and the PA have continued to be viewed increasingly unfavorably by Palestinians, both due to the PA’s recent violent suppression of demonstrators protesting against Israeli forces, as well as the authority’s “revolving door policy” that effectively funnels Palestinians from PA jails into Israeli prisons, as part of its “escalating security collaboration” with Israeli authorities.

The traditional USA position on Jerusalem is that the city’s status must be negotiated between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

He was not accompanied by any Israeli leaders during the visit.

The president has been trying to calibrate his expectations for peace.

Flying in 2008, President George W. Bush flew direct from Israel to Saudi Arabia, according to The Washington Post.

Noting how Trump did not mention Palestinian statehood or a two-state solution in his public remarks with Abbas, Member of Knesset Ofir Akunis (Likud) said, “This is a huge achievement, on a historic scale, and a big win for anyone opposed to the mistaken and unsafe idea of a Palestinian terror state in the heart of Israel“.

Trump is going to do his best while he is travelling in the Middle East, the American President wants just one thing from his two-day visit Palestine and Israel – an appearance of progress.

In an exclusive interview with the Atlantic in March, 2016, Obama called on Saudis to “share the neighborhood” with their Iranian foes and “institute some sort of cold peace”. In public remarks in the West Bank town of Bethlehem and in Jerusalem, Trump avoided mention of a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict, and made no references to controversial Jewish settlements or to recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

We believe you have the ability and the necessary influence over the occupying Power’s government to end the suffering of our children in Israeli prisons. So signs and symbols and implicit messages are being pored over for meaning. Wearing a black skullcap, he became the first sitting president to visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, the most holy site at which Jews can pray. That is being taken as support for Israel.

One point of contention is the fate of east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in 1967. The duo was received by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara who walked the red carpet along with their guests.

U.S. President Donald Trump visits the Western Wall in Jerusalem, May 22, 2017.

“Iran must never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon – never ever”, added Trump later at an event at the Israeli president’s house. Still, the obstacles standing in the way of the deal that Trump says he seeks are nearly all to be found in the domestic political arenas in Jerusalem and Ramallah.

He was referring to a Palestinian Martyrs’ fund. There is also a fund to support Palestinians who have been imprisoned by Israel.

President Trump, in his speech, did not pick up the cue. “I had a meeting this morning with President Abbas”, Trump said earlier, “and can tell you that the Palestinians are ready to reach for peace”.

Yet some Israeli officials are less certain of Trump.

Tillerson also said, “We solve the Israeli-Palestinian peace dilemma, we start solving a lot of the peace throughout the Middle East region”, a linkage that Netanyahu, who has said peace with other states is achievable before Israeli-Palestinian issues are resolved, has in the past forcefully rejected. But to argue this would be to give Mr. Trump entirely too much credit for a foreign-policy vision that he and his administration simply do not have.