Calling for “shalom, salaam, peace,” President Trump’s Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt recently declared that “among ordinary people and many regional leaders, the desire for peace is real and powerful.”
Greenblatt, writing at the conclusion of the Eid-al-Adha holiday and just before the Jewish High Holy Days, asserts that a comprehensive peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians requires both peoples to make hard decisions.
“The desire for peace is real and powerful.”
—Jason Greenblatt, assistant to the president and special representative for international negotiations
Even so, he continues, solving that dispute would not address regional conflicts ranging from Yemen to Libya, and from the battle against ISIS to Iranian-fomented terrorism.
“The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not, as many have claimed, the core conflict of the region,” Greenblatt asserts.
He deems unfortunate the Palestinian leadership’s condemnation of “a peace plan they have never seen.”
Nevertheless, Greenblatt identifies a potential path toward peace. “The Middle East has changed dramatically,” he writes. Most regional leaders understand now that “Israel is not the problem — indeed the Jewish state could be part of their solution.”
Greenblatt’s op-ed appears here.
