TEL AVIV — The Trump administration on Wednesday cautioned that neither Israelis nor Palestinians would be “fully pleased” by the as yet unveiled peace plan.
President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East Jason Greenblatt tweeted a joint statement from several U.S. officials on the so-called peace team in which they said that the path to peace will include painful compromises on both sides.
“No one will be fully pleased with our proposal, but that’s the way it must be if real peace is to be achieved,” the officials said. “Peace can only succeed if it is based on realities.”
Along with Greenblatt, the other officials behind the statement included US envoy to the UN Nikki Haley, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner and Greenblatt.
The Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, has in recent months repeatedly rejected the peace plan out of hand.
On Wednesday night, Abbas said the Trump administration’s proposal to improve living conditions in the Gaza Strip was a bunch of lies.
“I swear to God, they are liars,” he said in a speech in Ramallah.
He repeated the claim that the U.S.’s desire to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was only to further its own interests.
The PA has boycotted the U.S. administration since Trump’s declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the subsequent transfer of the U.S. embassy there.
The U.S. has also suspended millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian UN refugee agency UNRWA.
“We pay the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect,” Trump tweeted earlier in the year.
However, two weeks ago the U.S. released millions of dollars of frozen aid money to the PA for what they said would go toward Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation.
In his remarks Wednesday, Abbas also condemned Israel’s newly passed nation-state law, which ratifies the preexisting notion of Israel as “the national home of the Jewish people.” Abbas praised Jews for taking to the streets in the tens of thousands to protest the law.
He again reiterated the PA’s pledge to continue its so-called “pay-for-slay” scheme rewarding terrorists and their families with monthly stipends.
“Israel considers them criminals and wants them to starve to death,” he said.
The payments, he added, will continue “even if we have to cut from our flesh in order to help our people.”
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