BICOM

The Trump administration’s top officials for the Middle East Peace Process reportedly sought international support for the US peace plan with UN ambassadors at the Security Council on Tuesday.

Jason Greenblatt, the US Special Representative for International Negotiations, and Jared Kushner the Senior Advisor to the President, were present during Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas’s speech to the Council, where he called for multilateral negotiations to replace the US-led process.

The envoys did not share details of the US peace plan, nor did they indicate when the administration planned to unveil its proposals according to diplomats, but they “asked for support at the time the plan comes out”.

Referring to the US peace plan, diplomats claim that Kushner and Greenblatt said “both sides are going to love some of it, and hate some of it”. They also stressed that the “next step” in kick-starting peace negotiations will be the US peace plan.

BICOM is today publishing a paper by Senior Visiting Fellow Brig. Gen. Michael Herzog examining the PA’s search for a new international strategy. Herzog argues that the PA has “checked out” of the US-led peace process as a result of US President Donald Trump’s Jerusalem announcement, focusing instead on the route of “internationalising the conflict”.

Herzog warns that it will be very challenging for the West to prevent Abbas pursing this agenda and bringing him back to the US-led peace process. It recommends that the US and international community focus on alternative plans to improve the situation on the ground in Gaza, which is suffering from a collapse of basic infrastructure and the stalled Palestinian reconciliation process.