US senior official denies Israeli report on Trump’s peace plan

Comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace plan is not the aim right now, says senior US official.

A senior Trump administration official has dismissed Sunday’s report on Channel 2 News that the president was planning to put a peace plan on the table that included all the Arab countries together with Israel, Israel Hayom reported.

The news report also said that the Israeli government was of the opinion that President Donald Trump could very well exact a price from any side that would object to his plan, making it difficult for Netanyahu to refuse to negotiate. The American official appeared to reject this notion as well.

“”We are engaged in a productive dialogue with all relevant parties about an enduring peace deal,” he said, “but are not going to put an artificial deadline on anything. We have no imminent plans beyond continuing our conversations. As we have always said, our job is to facilitate a deal that works for both Israelis and Palestinians, not to impose anything on them.”

All this comes right after US Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt met in Cairo with Egyptian intelligence head Khaled Fawzy regarding the recent reconciliation deal between Hamas and Fatah. Egypt has worked hard on bringing the two sides together, and the Americans recognize Cairo as one of the most important interlocutors with whom the administration is having its ongoing “conversations.”

In an official diplomatic press release, Greenblatt fully backed Israel’s demand that “any Palestinian government must unambiguously and explicitly commit to nonviolence, recognize the State of Israel, accept previous agreements and obligations between the parties – including to disarm terrorists – and commit to peaceful negotiations.  If Hamas is to play any role in a Palestinian government, it must accept these basic requirements.”

By: Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News