Palestinian spokesman: White House peace visit ‘a waste of time’

A spokesman for Abbas said Saturday, ahead of a visit by the White House Middle East peace team, that their initiative is “bound to fail.”

By: World Israel News Staff

A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas  rebuffed an initiative by the Trump administration to foster an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, saying a visit to the region by White House officials planned for next week is “a waste of time and bound to fail.”

Channel 10 news reported that according to Nabil Abu Rudeineh, Abbas’s spokesman, the US initiative is in reality nothing more than an attempt to foster enmity between Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and the PA, which has control over areas of Judea and Samaria.

Abbas and other PA officials have refused to meet with White House negotiators since the decision in December by US President Donald Trump to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and to recognize unidentified areas of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and other US officials have come under attack from Abbas.

The US Peace team, including Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, is set to meet high-ranking officials in Jerusalem, Cairo, Amman, Doha and Riyadh, but not Ramallah.

In April, Abbas made a number of conditions in exchange for his willingness to enter into discussions with the US and Israel. These included receiving a US guarantee of support for a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.