As Palestinian leaders are still refusing U.S. calls to engage in peace negotiations, American representatives take to Twitter, calling out Palestinians leaders for purposely misleading the public with inaccurate posts, questioning if the Palestinian Authority is actually sincere in seeking a genuine peace.

By Ryan Jones

The Palestinian Authority on Thursday slammed the Trump Administration for “conspiring” to broker a Middle East peace deal that doesn’t meet each and every one of the Palestinians’ demands.

U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Jason Greenblatt (left) engages Palestinians and Tweets corrections to Palestinian Authority lead negotiator Saeb Erekat on Twitter.

For the very same reason, most Israelis are thrilled to now have the likes of Donald Trump steering the Israeli-Arab peace process.

Next Wednesday and Thursday (Feb. 13-14), the Trump Administration and the government of Poland will jointly host a Middle East peace conference in Warsaw. Government ministers from around the world, and especially from the Middle East, have been invited to attend.

Makes absolutely no sense. Scheduled to be there are VP Mike Pence, Sec of State Mike Pompeo, PM Benjamin Netanyahu, and foreign ministers of KSA, Jordan, UAE, Oman and Bahrain. The leadership of the Arab Peace initiative will be there. Yet the PLO/PA refuses to attend.

— Avi Kaner (@AviKaner) February 8, 2019

The Palestinians have similarly preemptively rejected any possible outcome of next week’s gathering, calling it “an American conspiracy intended to get the participants to adopt the US views on issues of the region, particularly the Palestine question.”

For it’s part, the Trump Administration has made clear that it will not apologize for taking a pro-Israel approach to the Mideast peace process, noting that the previous approach of trying to strike a note of equivalency had failed miserably.

Well, Mr. Nabil, we agree on something- there is no peace without an agreement. We are working hard on that. You’re doing nothing. You can’t claim to want peace and also try to sabotage the potential for an agreement. It can’t go both ways. (2/3)

— Jason D. Greenblatt (@jdgreenblatt45) February 6, 2019

“We don’t believe that in order for us to work on a peace effort we need to have an equivalency, where we can only say certain things about Israel if at the same time we also say something about the Palestinians,” a senior US official told The Times of Israel.

“Not only does that not work; we don’t think it’s right. We say what’s on our mind; we speak the truth. The truth may be uncomfortable for some people. But we cannot solve the conflict without being open and honest,” he added.

Indeed, 20 years of American administrations playing to Palestinian sensitivities had allowed the Palestinian Authority to systematically violate signed peace agreements and demand gestures and preconditions to which no Israeli government could realistically agree.

View original Israel Today publication at:
http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/35900/Default.aspx