Prime Minister Yair Lapid said a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was “the right thing” for Israel, addressing the world from the United Nations General Assembly’s high-level meeting Thursday.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield met with Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Monday to discuss the Biden Administration’s “commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon” – but used the opportunity to also continue her boss’s mission of pressuring Israel into accepting the so-called “two state solution.”
US President Donald Trump’s Mideast negotiating team held talks in Tel Aviv and Ramallah on Thursday, trying to revive the moribund diplomatic process, even as it pointedly refrained from any public commitment to a two-state solution.
A high level US delegation including senior White House adviser Jared Kushner arrived in Israel late Wednesday, ahead of meetings with Palestinian and Israeli leaders aimed at looking for way to jumpstart peace talks.
The foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority met on Saturday evening in Cairo to coordinate positions ahead of the expected arrival of an American delegation to the Middle East as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to try to renew peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday that the entire administration of US President Donald Trump is in “chaos,” and indicated that the White House disarray was affecting peace efforts.
The Palestinian Authority expects the Trump administration to commit to a peace deal endgame before the close of this month and prefers it would be the two-state solution.
Pope Francis arrived on Sunday evening at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, where he was scheduled to meet with the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I.