Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed to reporters in Washington, following his meeting with President Donald Trump, that he urged the American leader to amend the nuclear agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran, or nix it all together. The Israeli leader noted that his conversation with the President had focused primarily on the challenges Israel faces with regard to the Islamic Republic’s actions in Syria and Lebanon, underlining Trump’s “impressive familiarity with the details” and his “great resolve” in tackling the Iranian threat. On the Palestinian issue, the Prime Minister said that he had not been shown a draft of the American peace initiative and that the Trump Administration would decide when to release it. That said, Netanyahu once against reiterated his accusation of the Palestinian leadership’s evasive conduct on holding negotiations that would bring about an end to the decades old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
U.S. President Donald Trump said at the start of his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he might come to the inauguration of the American embassy in Jerusalem, which is scheduled to take place in two months, on the 70th Independence Day of the state of Israel. Trump also stressed that Washington invests great efforts in the peace initiative but if the Palestinians did not return to the negotiating table, peace could not become a reality. In response to a question regarding the presentation of his peace plan, President Trump said “We will see. We are working on it very hard and we would like to…look, it would be a great achievement, and even from a humanitarian standpoint — what better if we could make peace between Israel and the Palestinians. And, I can tell you, we are working very hard on doing that. And I think we have a very good chance.”
In response to President Trump’s comments, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ chief adviser Nabil Sha’ath said that he saw no point in complying to Washington’s call to return to the negotiating table as long as Israel displayed no real willingness for peace based on two states for two peoples and on the 1967 lines. Sha’ath further reiterated Ramallah’s position in which the Palestinian leadership would not agree to negotiations run exclusively by the United States and was demanding that Russia, China and Europe be included. The Palestinian President’s adviser concluded by emphasizing that the Palestinians have lost all faith in Trump as an impartial mediator, a reality that has made peace between Israel and the Palestinians increasingly elusive.