The Trump administration has again ratcheted up pressure on the Palestinian Authority (PA) to consider its peace plan. In the latest action, National Security Advisor John Bolton announced Monday that the U.S. will close the Palestine Liberation Office (PLO) in Washington, D.C., citing the PA’s refusal to negotiate.
U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said, during a press conference at the United Nations last week, that peace is possible only if Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will “come to the table.”
Haley challenged Abbas to consider the peace proposal that the Trump administration is calling “the deal of the century.” It is expected to be unveiled after the U.S. mid-term elections.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to hear the plan developed by Trump advisors Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, Haley said, but Abbas refuses to participate or recognize the U.S. as a peace broker.
“The Palestinian people should be frustrated with Abbas,” Haley said. “He is not dealing with Hamas, he is not doing things to better (the situation for) the Palestinian people.”
These statements by Haley and Bolton came in the wake of the U.S. State Department halting funding the previous week to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a body created to aid Palestinians who left their homes after Israel became a nation in 1948. The termination of this aid is a result, as the Jewish Policy Center website says, of UNRWA seeking to “maintain the violent status quo in the Middle East, even if it means turning a blind eye to terror.”
Both Israelis and Palestinians remain skeptical that peace between them is imminent.
Palestinians Refuse to Deal with U.S.
Abbas frequently has laid down his prerequisites for peace. He told Britain’s Prince William in June that Palestinians are “serious about reaching peace with Israel, where the two states would live next to each other in security and stability” – based on the June 4 (1967) borders.
“This has been our position for a long time. We want to achieve peace through peace negotiations.” Abbas said, adding that the Palestinians are “committed to combating terrorism locally, regionally and internationally.”
But Abbas claims the U.S. is too biased toward Israel to act as a peace broker.
“The PA has boycotted the Trump administration and rebuffed its peace efforts since the U.S. President’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December of last year,” reported The Times of Israel. “The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem — which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed — as the capital of their future state.”
World Israel News reported this summer, “Palestinian sources said there was a concern the U.S. would take painful punitive actions against them if they continued to boycott U.S. efforts to achieve a peace agreement.”
Compromise is Critical for Attaining Peace
Ambassador Haley said the Trump administration’s proposal contains elements that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians will like. She called it “unbelievably detailed,” “thoroughly done” and “well-thought-out from both sides.” Netanyahu has agreed to hear it, but Abbas has refused.
The monthly Peace Index poll – sponsored by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University – said 89 percent of Israeli Jewish people doubt there will be a “positive breakthrough in Israel’s relations with the Palestinians,” The Jerusalem Post reported last week. The same poll shows 71 percent of Palestinian respondents believe as of this month that “the chances of such a breakthrough are slim.”
Haley encouraged, “We have to put pressure on Abbas and say, It’s time. It’s time for a better life for Palestinians. And only he can deliver that. And we have to acknowledge that Hamas is part of the problem.”
Please pray with us:
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Thanking God for the Trump administration’s efforts to look for new ways to reach Middle East peace
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That all Israeli citizens will recognize the most important truth – the Good News of Yeshua (Jesus)
