by WorldTribune Staff, August 22, 2018
Israel will have to pay a “high price” for peace in the Middle East and the Palestinians will “get something very good” in return for the U.S. moving its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Aug. 21.
While not going into detail as to what they will get, the Palestinians will get something in return for the embassy move, Trump said during a rally in West Virginia.
“If there’s ever going to be peace with the Palestinians, then this was a good thing to have done,” Trump said in reference to the embassy move. “We took it off the table. In past negotiations, they never got past Jerusalem. Now Israel will have to pay a higher price, because it’s off the table. The Palestinians will get something very good, because it’s their turn next.”
Trump also pointed out that he “now understands” why previous presidents did not follow through on their promises to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, saying he received endless phone calls from world leaders urging him not do it.
“But I approved it, and it should have been done years ago,” he said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. National Security Council earlier this month reportedly published a tender to hire experts for a steering committee to be established for the Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan. The committee would allegedly be chaired by Middle East special envoy Jason Greenblatt, who is working on the peace plan along with Trump’s senior adviser, Jared Kushner.
The administration would not be able to present the final peace plan until 2019, the tender said, according to a source familiar with it, Arutz Sheva reported.
U.S. national security spokesperson Garrett Marquis later told Arutz Sheva that the report was false.
Greenblatt last week posted a tweet about the peace plan in which he said that neither side will be satisfied with the proposal, but that was the only way to achieve true peace.
The statement, which was posted to Greenblatt’s Twitter in English, Hebrew and Arabic, was signed by him, Kushner, U.S ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley and U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman.
Subscribe to Geostrategy-Direct __________ Support Free Press Foundation