US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Jason Greenblatt met Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday in Jerusalem, as the White House put out feelers on reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
“I hope that we can do some good things together,” the premier told Trump’s special representative for international negotiations, according to a video posted by Netanyahu’s office.
Greenblatt replied: “I think we’re gonna do great things together.”
Trump’s envoy is due to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday.
“Honoured to be meeting with Israelis and Palestinians this week as I travel to the region,” Greenblatt tweeted on Sunday.
Trump on Friday invited Abbas “to visit the White House soon to discuss ways to resume the (Palestinian-Israeli) political process,” in their first telephone conversation since Trump’s inauguration in January, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said.
Greenblatt advised Trump on the Arab-Israeli conflict during the presidential election campaign.
Trump received Netanyahu at the White House in mid-February. At that meeting, Trump broke with decades of US policy by saying he was not bound to a two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israeli daily Haaretz on Monday quoted Palestinian Authority officials as saying “the Palestinians will make it clear they are interested in the Trump administration presenting its own peace plan”.
The peace process has been deadlocked since April 2014 following the collapse of indirect negotiations led by then US secretary of state John Kerry.
Since Trump came to power, having pledged to lead the most pro-Israel US administration in history, Palestinian officials have been quietly alarmed by their lack of access to senior figures in the White House.
Join GhanaStar.com to receive daily email alerts of breaking news in Ghana. GhanaStar.com is your source for all Ghana News. Get the latest Ghana news, breaking news, sports, politics, entertainment and more about Ghana, Africa and beyond.