Arab leaders ready to bypass Abbas to push Trump’s peace plan

Arab nations will be ready to back Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative with or without the cooperation of the Palestinian president. 

By: World Israel News Staff

Arab nations informed US President Donald Trump’s ‎Middle East envoys that they would back a US peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians regardless of whether Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas agrees to discuss it, according to a report by Israel Hayom. ‎

Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner and US Special ‎Representative for International Negotiations Jason ‎Greenblatt were told by representatives and officials from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and ‎the United Arab Emirates that they would be willing to take a detour around Abbas if he continued to exhibit intransigence.

‎Abbas’ rejectionism continued to be a source of consternation, the representatives and officials said.

A willingness to bypass Abbas is something that was expressed by Kushner during a meeting and interview with the editorial board of  Al-Quds, a Palestinian newspaper.

The Israeli daily Israel Hayom on Sunday said that Cairo related ‎that there was a‎‎”unanimous” position with regard to the peace talks and that there would be full cooperation with Washington on the part of Cairo, Amman, Riyadh and Abu ‎Dhabi, even if it entailed ignoring Abbas.‎

At the same time, the message conveyed to Washington from representatives of the four Arab nations was that Palestinian interests had to be addressed and could not be ignored. ‎

“Despite the strategic mistakes made by Abu Mazen ‎‎[Abbas] and his people,” an Egyptian official said, according to Israel Hayom,”Kushner and Greenblatt were ‎told, in no uncertain terms, that the Palestinians ‎deserve an independent Palestinian state with east ‎Jerusalem as its capital.”‎

‎”Kushner agreed to the Arab nations’ demand and made ‎it clear during his meetings with [Jordan’s] King ‎Abdullah and [Egyptian] President [Abdel-Fattah] el-‎Sissi that the interests of the Palestinian people ‎will not be harmed if the regional peace plan is ‎introduced without the Palestinian leadership’s ‎cooperation,” Israel Hayom quoted the official as saying.

Abbas has declared that he would refuse to meet with Trump’s envoys after Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December and relocated the American Embassy to Jerusalem.

Jared KushnerUS-Arab relations