[ad_1]
By Anne Gearan and Ruth Eglash | Washington Post
UNITED NATIONS – President Donald Trump hopes to release his peace plan in the Middle East in the next two to four months and reach an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, if any, during his first term of office. he said Wednesday.
Sitting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said he preferred a result that would give the Palestinians a separate state. That's what he's more specific about what he wants to help negotiate.
"I like the two-state solution," Trump said. "That's what I think works best."
A separate Palestinian state alongside Israel has been the stated goal of US peace efforts for two decades, but the Trump administration has so far refused to endorse it.
Trump had already stated that he would support a two-state outcome if that was what both parties wanted.
"I really believe something will happen. My dream is to be able to do this before the end of my first term, "said Trump before he and Netanyahu met on the sidelines of the US Annual General Meeting.
Trump has put the Israeli leader on the spot saying that his decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem last year was to be reciprocal with Israeli concessions to the Palestinians.
"Israel will have to do something that will be good for the other side," Trump said in response to reporters' questions.
Netanyahu did not answer. He endorsed the goal of two states in the past, but members of his right-wing coalition oppose this idea.
Naftali Bennett, Israel's right-wing education minister, immediately tweeted that his Jewish-born party "is part of the Israeli government, there will be no Palestinian state that would be a disaster for Israel."
Trump called on the Jerusalem embassy to move "probably the biggest chip" on the negotiating table. Eliminating it, Trump said, paved the way for talks without one of the biggest obstacles to peace efforts. He did not say how he wanted the status of Jerusalem to be resolved, and he did not mention the Palestinian demand that a future state should have its capital in East Jerusalem.
Trump said the plan will likely be released in "two, three, four months".
This timetable – which begins after the mid-term elections in November – is also more specific than that of Trump's advisers on the next steps in a global deal that has been largely completed months ago.
The plan, led by Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and advisor, is expected to address all major issues of the seven-decade-old conflict. Trump said it would contain ideas that have not been tried yet.
Trump predicted that the "100%" Palestinians would come to the negotiating table and said the two sides want an agreement.
Palestinian leaders have boycotted the Trump administration since December, when the president announced that the United States would now consider Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
The Trump administration said the announcement does not prejudge Palestinian claims to East Jerusalem nor the status of holy places, but Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the decision proved that Trump could not negotiate a fair deal.
Trump said he would like the agreement to be "solidly understood by both parties and mutually agreed by both parties" before the start of formal negotiations.
Netanyahu thanked Trump for the move of the embassy, saying, "You changed the story and you touched our hearts."
The United States Embassy was in Tel Aviv, about an hour away, so as not to show favoritism on both sides.
"Palestinians can have the power to govern themselves, but they can not have the power to threaten Israel," Netanyahu told a news briefing on Wednesday with Israeli media. "Peace means all hostilities cease, not giving the Palestinians means to escalate the conflict."
Netanyahu's objectives for the meeting with Trump were more focused on Iran and new tensions with Russia over a Russian plane shot down in Syria and the transfer of Russian S300 missiles to the Syrian army that could jeopardize Israel's military advantage over its neighbors.
He made no public commitment to Trump about the peace plan or any negotiations.
Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni, who led the failed negotiations for President George W. Bush's second term, met President Abbas in New York on Tuesday night and urged him to reopen diplomatic channels with the states. -United.
"I welcome Trump's words and the two things he said about Israel's future – the steadfastness of the United States alongside Israel and its support for the two-State solution. Both are important for our future, "said Livni.
