The White House national security adviser said that the Palestinians missed their chance to have a say in the peace process.
By World Israel News Staff
With U.S. President Donald Trump about to enter the final year of his first term in office, time is running out for the administration to reveal its long-delayed Mideast peace plan.
According to White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien, the peace plan may be released soon even though Israel is in political turmoil as the country will be holding an unprecedented third election within a year on March 2.
“I don’t think it necessarily depends on the elections. They will have had three elections in a row, we’ll have to see,” O’Brien told Axios on Sunday.
“The president is looking for a solution on the Israeli-Palestinian front that is durable, is long-lasting, and we’re not timing anything we do based on the domestic politics, either the Palestinians or the Israelis,” he added.
“The Palestinians have already rejected Trump’s Middle East peace approach,” he said. “Trump has slashed aid to the Palestinians and officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Talks between the U.S. and Palestinians ended more than two years ago,” he said.
Last Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political rival MK Benny Gantz said that the release of the U.S. peace plan ahead of the country’s upcoming elections would be “a harsh interference in the electoral process in Israel.”
In September, MK Naftali Bennett, now defense minister, tweeted a map that he claimed represented the Trump administration’s peace plan.
The map showed a large black area in Judea and Samaria presumably marking areas to be given to the Palestinians with only scattered white dots representing the Jewish communities.
At the time, Bennett warned supporters of Israeli settlement: “Don’t say later that you didn’t know. This is the map…Wake up!”