President Donald Trump plunged into the Middle East peace process on Wednesday, receiving Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas at the White House as part of a push to end the long-running conflict.
After hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February, the self-styled deal-maker-in-chief will host Abbas for the first time since coming to office.
“The president’s ultimate goal is to establish peace in the region,” said White House press secretary Sean Spicer.
That long-shot effort — which has eluded US presidents since the 1970s — got off to a rocky start early in Trump’s administration.
Trump renounced support for a Palestinian state and vowed to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, breaking two tenets of American policy held for decades.
Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday said Trump is still “giving serious consideration into moving the American embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”
That move would likely spark Palestinian fury and is privately seen by many in the Israel and US security establishments as needlessly inflammatory.
At the same time, Trump has urged Israel to hold back on settlement building in the West Bank, a longstanding concern of Palestinians and much of the world.
Pence said Trump is “personally committed to resolving the Israeli and Palestinian conflict” and “valuable progress” is being made.
“Momentum is building and goodwill is growing,” he said at an Israeli independence day event at the White House.
Abbas, who is expected at the White House shortly before noon, will deliver a joint statement with Trump after their talks, but no press conference is planned.
The 82-year-old makes the trip to Washington while politically unpopular back home, with polls suggesting most Palestinians want him to resign.
Abbas’s term was meant to expire in 2009, but he has remained in office with no elections held.
He will be hoping Trump can pressure Israel into concessions he believes are necessary to salvage a two-state solution to one of the world’s longest-running conflicts.
Palestinians are watching closely, including the leader of the radical Hamas movement Khaled Meshaal, who called on Trump to break with past approaches to Middle East peace.
“This is a historic opportunity to pressure Israel… to find an equitable solution for the Palestinian people,” he told CNN. “And it will be to the credit of the civilized world and the American administration to stop the darkness that we have been suffering from for many years.”
Hamas on Tuesday released a policy document that for the first time indicates a willingness to accept the idea of a Palestinian state within the borders that emerged after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, although it stops short of recognizing Israel.
Palestinian officials have seen their cause overshadowed by worry over global concerns such as the war in Syria and Islamic State group jihadists, and want Trump’s White House to bring it back to the forefront.
The meeting Wednesday is a sign that “Trump’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more conventional than anyone expected,” said Ilan Goldenberg of the Center for New American Security.
“The big question now is what Trump will try to accomplish during this first meeting. If he goes for the home run and tries to restart negotiations, he is likely to fail.”
“Instead, Trump and his team should focus on incremental steps to improve the situation on the ground, preserve the possibility of the two-state solution at another time, and set conditions for negotiations in the future.”
One of Trump’s top advisers, Jason Greenblatt, held wide-ranging talks with both Israelis and Palestinians during a visit in March.
Abbas and Trump spoke by phone on March 11, and there are suggestions the US president could visit the Middle East this month.
A group of three influential Republican senators have called on Trump to ask Abbas to stop funding Palestinian prisoners and their families.
That could prose major domestic political headaches for Abbas, as he battles unpopularity and challenges from rival factions.
But according to former White House official Dennis Ross, Trump is helping Abbas by extending the White House invite.
“The president, in some ways, has already added to his relevancy by inviting him to come.”
But mutual distrust between Palestinians and Israelis will be a formidable, if not impossible, barrier for Trump to overcome.
“The gap between the parties has probably never been greater,” said Ross.
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