Trump arrives for talks with Palestinian leader in Bethlehem

Netanyahu was one of the first world leaders to visit Washington after President Trump’s inauguration and U.S. President’s visit is another step to reaffirm the bond of friendship between the two countries.

USA first lady Melania Trump touches the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City on May 22, 2017.

Trump added: “I can see a much deeper path, friendship with Israel“.

Earlier, on his fourth and final day in the Middle East, his motorcade crossed through the barrier surrounding biblical Bethlehem for a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, where he pressed for progress on the dormant peace process.

Abbas also called on the Israeli government to meet the demands of some 1,000 hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails.

After years of butting heads with Trump’s predecessor, Netanyahu celebrated a new American president’s arrival as a moment of hope in the stalled peace talks between Israel and Palestinians.

President Trump wants to assure you that he’s absolutely not guilty. “Mr. President, I extend my hand to you to be your partner in this noble mission”. “King Salman feels very strongly and, I can tell you, would love to see peace with Israel and the Palestinians”.

“The prospects of their uniting to do something to try to reduce their differences with Israel. creates an opportunity”, Mitchell said Monday on CNN.

But in his public remarks, Trump steered clear of any such language, and did not mention what has been the goal of US diplomacy for two decades: a state of Israel and an independent Palestinian state co-existing side-by-side.

While both Netanyahu and Abbas reiterated during Trump’s visit a commitment to peace, both also face domestic constraints on their ability to manoeuvre or compromise.

But he added that he had a “feeling that we’re going to get there eventually”. He has carefully avoided antagonizing the Palestinians, including by so far violating a campaign pledge to move the USA embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

“Trump didn’t speak of their right to self-determination. he didn’t speak of the two state solution. and they will probably be disappointed that Trump did not say what his plans were or his vision was”, Abdel-Hamid said.

“The fact is, Israeli domestic politics really don’t lend themselves to reaching that particular conclusion”, Cordesman said.

Israeli Prime Minister has always been known as an opponent of the nuclear deal signed between Iran and major world powers.

Trump once again criticized the Obama administration’s Iranian nuclear deal. He again touched on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying he was “personally committed” to helping the two sides reach a deal.

The president and first lady seemed to have a similar incident as they walked the red carpet after arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv on Monday.

“I would like to draw the attention to the issue of our Palestinian prisoners, who have been on hunger strike for more than one month, meters away from here in the vicinity of the Church of the Nativity. I can live with either one”.

While Israeli officials cheered Trump’s election, some are now wary of the tougher line he has taken on settlements: urging restraint but not calling for a full halt to construction. That’s despite Trump’s campaign rhetoric, which signaled he would embolden right-wing forces in Israel. “There is no question about that”, Trump told Rivlin.

Yet Trump himself brought up a source of criticism.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said “The wall is part of Jerusalem” but did not elaborate any further. Jason Greenblatt was until past year the chief legal officer at the Trump Organization.

However, Trump’s United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, asserted that the wall is part of Israel.

In the Gaza Strip, other Palestinians trampled photos of the USA leader and, according to Reuters news agency, burnt an effigy of him. He has tasked his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner with leading the effort for the White House. We’ll approach it, I think, with a lot of humility.