U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East Envoy Jason Greenblatt responded to the Wall Street Journal’s report via Twitter, accusing both the Islamist Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad of continuing “to bring misery & suffering to Palestinians in Gaza.”
Greenblatt’s statement came just several days after he visited Israel together with Senior White House Advisor Jared Kushner, as part of Washington’s latest efforts to unveil its so-called “Deal of the Century” to resolve the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with the delegation in Jerusalem, where he underscored the two nations strong bilateral relationship. He also maintained that Israel’s holding of snap elections once again in September will not hinder Washington’s efforts to realize its Middle East strategy.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s optimism that Israel’s unprecedented repetition of national parliamentary elections will not impact the American ability to advance its regional initiative failed to convince U.S. President Donald Trump. Prior to boarding a flight to Europe at the start of the week, Trump called Israel’s current political situation “all messed up” and “ridiculous,” saying “we’re not happy about that, but if we can get a Mideast peace plan that’d be good.”
As President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu voiced frustration over a possible delay in releasing the political segment of the U.S. proposal caused by Israel’s electoral turmoil and political circumstances in Washington, Palestinian leaders in the West Bank city of Ramallah expressed satisfaction. PLO Executive Committee Member Hanan Ashrawi said “The time frame will be subject to domestic politics in Israel and then in the U.S., and it’s clear that so far the Americans have been kicking the ball down the road all the time about the plan in order to give Israel more time to create facts unilaterally and for them to create facts unilaterally such as Jerusalem and refugees and so on and to prevent and circumvent any type of intervention from anybody else including the Europeans to have political initiative. So on the one hand they are buying time for Israel, on the other hand they are actually preventing any serious political initiative to deal with the issues, and they are using this to put more pressures on the Palestinians, and to adopt more punitive measures, including devastating economic measures against Palestine.”