MIDEAST UPDATE: 4.1.17 - U.S. Plans To Host Peace Summit With Israeli, Palestinian And Gulf Leaders

U.S. Plans To Host Peace Summit With Israeli, Palestinian And Gulf Leaders -  by Deborah Danan - http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2017/03/29/report-u-s-to-host-peace-summit-with-israeli-palestinian-and-gulf-leaders/

 

The Trump administration is exploring the option of hosting a summit this summer with Gulf Arab leaders, the Palestinian Authority president and Israel's prime minister in an effort to jumpstart the moribund Israeli-Palestinian negotiations process, sources told the Jerusalem Post.

 

Israeli sources who asked to remain anonymous have said that U.S. officials are quietly assessing whether there would be interest in such a conference, the report said.

 

"The president wants to bring them over - a public event with them," one senior Israeli source told the Post on Tuesday. "I think it's feasible, but the question is what happens after."

 

The official also said that Arab representatives would only agree to attend the summit if Israel implemented an unofficial construction freeze outside the large settlement blocs.

 

A large portion of the four-day marathon of meetings between President Donald Trump's special representative for the Middle East Jason Greenblatt and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's chief of staff Yoav Horowitz was devoted to discussing a settlement freeze but no final decision was reached, the official said.

 

Arab world leaders are slated to meet in Washington next month, possibly paving the way to a summit, sources said.

 

Ahead of this week's Arab League Summit in Amman, Greenblatt said "the time has come to make a deal." He noted that Trump believes an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement "will reverberate positively throughout the region and the world."

 

In a historically unprecedented move, the proposed summit would include the Saudi leadership at the crown prince level, other Gulf leaders, their Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts and Israelis on the same stage in front of cameras, the report claimed.

 

However, there are misgivings that such a summit would not have any real effect on policy on the ground.

 

Some Israeli sources believe that while it would be a positive step for the Jewish state to publicly engage with Riyadh after years of under-the-rug discussions on Iran, such a conference may build unrealistic expectations for the Palestinians that would be untenable in reality.

 

"It can lead to an intifada if we don't have a plan for afterwards," another official said. "Both Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] and Netanyahu will show up, but neither is likely to come with deliverables."

 

However, one senior Trump administration official told the Post the U.S. has no intention of hosting a peace summit. "The administration is concentrating on building relationships with parties in the region," the official said. "We're just not contemplating such a conference at this time."

 

But Trump's efforts - even on the public level - seem to indicate interest in such a gathering. His son-in-law and advisor, Jared Kushner, has been in talks with key Gulf leaders on an initiative that would include regional players.

 

"Trump said at his press conference that he wants a settlements slowdown, and he talked about the outside-in approach using the regionals. So this is not that far of a jump," one former State Department official involved in Middle East peace issues told the Post. "One plus one equals two."

 

Republicans in Washington are warning Trump not to move too fast on any Mideast proposal.

 

"The timing for a splashy, high-profile, new set of negotiations does not seem to be right," Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) told the Post, adding that the stability of the Palestinian Authority was in doubt. "Quiet confidence-building measures might be appropriate."

 

Jordan king tells Arab summit no peace in region without Palestinian state - By Karin Laub and Mohammed Daraghmeh - http://www.timesofisrael.com/arab-summit-to-endorse-palestinian-positions-with-eye-on-us/

 

Leaders of 21 nations expected to reaffirm 2002 peace plan offering normalization with Israel after deal with Ramallah

 

Arab leaders held their annual summit Wednesday, poised to endorse key Palestinian positions in the conflict with Israel - a signal to US President Donald Trump that a deal on Palestinian statehood must precede any Israeli-Arab normalization.

 

Jordan's King Abdullah told the summit's opening session that there can be no peace or stability in the region without setting up a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

 

The Arab summit was to adopt a series of resolutions, several dealing with the Palestinian issue. The statements, subject to last-minute change, were previously endorsed by Arab foreign ministers.

 

The draft resolutions condemn Israeli policies, including settlement construction, that are "aimed at eliminating the two-state solution and replacing it with apartheid."

 

They also warned against moving diplomatic missions to contested Jerusalem, whose eastern sector is sought by the Palestinians as a capital. Trump has said he would move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, but relocation no longer appears imminent.

 

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said the summit's focus on the Palestinians is a ploy to divert from the real issues. "We are the ultimate fig leaf for all Arab abuses and failures," he wrote in a Twitter post.

 

The Palestinian quest for independence also served as a showcase for Arab unity in a fractured region, where leaders find themselves on opposite sides of long-running conflicts, particularly Syria's six-year-old civil war.

 

The 21 kings, presidents and top officials gathered on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea.

 

Syrian President Bashar Assad was absent; he hasn't been invited since Syria's suspension from the 22-member Arab League following his crackdown on a 2011 uprising that quickly turned into a brutal civil war.

 

The gathering came ahead of White House meetings in coming weeks between Trump and three Arab leaders - Jordan's King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

 

Trump hasn't yet formulated a policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but has suggested the internationally backed idea of a two-state solution isn't the only option on the table.

 

The Palestinians want to set up a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War.

 

On Wednesday, the leaders were expected to reaffirm a 2002 Arab peace plan that offers Israel normalization with dozens of Arab and Muslim countries if it cedes the war-won lands for the creation of a Palestinian state.

 

This would undercut Israel's proposal of a regional peace in which normalization with some Arab countries would precede a deal with the Palestinians. Abbas objects to reopening the Arab plan to negotiations, fearing it would further weaken the Palestinian position vis-a-vis Israel.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not formally abandoned his stated support for the two-state solution, but has stopped mentioning it in his speeches since Trump was elected. Instead, he has made vague statements about seeking a region-wide agreement.

 

Netanyahu frequently boasts of strong behind-the-scenes alliances with unidentified Arab countries.

 

In a speech this week to AIPAC, the pro-Israel American lobby group, Netanyahu once again alluded to a region-wide approach, saying that "common dangers faced by Israel and many of our Arab neighbors now offer a rare opportunity to build bridges toward a better future."

 

Jordan has a large Palestinian population and also serves as custodian of a major Muslim-run shrine in Jerusalem that is also Judaism's holiest site.

 

The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, has been a scene of frequent Israeli-Palestinian tensions, including clashes.

 

Palestinians fear Israel wants to divide it, a charge Israel denies