U.S. President Donald Trump’s team of neophyte Middle East peacemakers is reportedly shifting to “a new phase” in its effort to solve one of the world’s most intractable disputes, by starting to draft a peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s lawyer and Middle East envoy, was quoted by The New York Times as saying the team is “not going to put an artificial timeline on the development or presentation of any specific ideas and will also never impose a deal.” Instead, he said, the goal “is to facilitate, not dictate, a lasting peace agreement to improve the lives of Israelis and Palestinians and security across the region.”
Greenblatt has spent most of the last year shuttling back and forth for discussions between some of the relevant parties in the Middle East and the Trump team, which includes the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner; the U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman; and Trump’s deputy national security adviser, Dina H. Powell.