Trump heads to Israel in possible first arrival from Saudi

Husam Zumlot, a former adviser to Abbas who is now the Palestinian ambassador in Washington, said the contours of any deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians were well known to both sides.

“To be revealing too much before you know what you can achieve and when you can achieve it.is probably the best way to undermine your ability to get anything done soon”, he said. Also, he said that freedom for the Palestinians and their independence is the key of peace and stability in the region and in the world.

Trump and the convoy passed through the 26-foot-tall concrete wall with watch towers that is Israel’s separation barrier, and past “Checkpoint 300”, where thousands of Palestinian workers cross into Israel each morning to reach their jobs on Israeli construction sites. He met multiple times with Netanyahu, and said in a joint appearance with the prime minister Tuesday, “I can tell you that the Palestinians are ready to reach for peace – and, from my meeting with my friend Benjamin Netanyahu, I can tell you Israelis are ready to reach for peace as well”.

“The fate of Jerusalem can’t be decided by Trump, for Jerusalem is Arab; Jerusalem is Palestinian, and we decide its fate, not the Americans. Now, let’s think, before we jump and say no, no, the Western Wall is not part of Israel”. I hope that there is an agreement that everyone can live with.

At the same time, the White House sent mixed signals regarding the Trump administration’s official policy on the conflict, seemingly acknowledging the existence of “Palestine” while simultaneously recognising Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem.

During their visit to Jerusalem, Donald Trump and his wife also toured the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in what the White House said was a private visit. If peace means that Israel can no longer contain its nature as a Jewish state, if peace means they have to give up control of Jerusalem – if that’s peace, that’s not peace.

Regarding the Palestinian captives in Israeli prisons, Abbas described their demands as humanistic and fair, and he called upon Israel to respond to these demands. Since 1967, the global community-including the US -has refused to officially recognize eastern Jerusalem and its Jewish holy sites as part of Israel.

A key ingredient to the relative success of Donald Trump’s first foreign visit in office could be described as intentional amnesia, a condition that appeared to render the president as well as the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Israel (and presumably the Vatican, later this week) without memory of some of the most highly charged, critical comments or pledges the commander in chief has made in the previous year. They’re losers, and we’ll have more of them, but they’re losers.

After meeting with Abbas, Trump will visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, where he will lay a wreath and deliver brief remarks.

The US president’s words came as he visited Bethlehem during a trip to the Middle East.

While Netanyahu celebrated this stark reversal in US policy, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani objected to Trump’s rhetoric. After an hour of talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Trump condemned the bomb attack in Manchester that killed 22 people, calling the perpetrators “evil losers”.