WASHINGTON — Amid violent regional protests over US President Donald Trump’s decision last week to formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, his top peace envoy will head to Israel early next week to try to salvage efforts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian accord.
The White House said Jason Greenblatt would come to Israel next week and stay throughout the upcoming visit of Vice President Mike Pence. It is not clear if Greenblatt will try to meet with Palestinian officials who have angrily declared the US no longer has a role to play in the peace process.
“As we have said since the Jerusalem announcement, we anticipated reactions like the ones going on in the region but are going to remain hard at work on our peace plan,” a senior administration official told The Times of Israel on Friday.
This announcement comes shortly after four Palestinians died on Friday afternoon after being shot in clashes with Israeli security forces in the West Bank and Gaza.
One of them — Mohammed Aqal, 29 — stabbed an Israeli Border Police officer in the upper torso before being shot. He died on Friday evening, the Palestinian Authority health ministry said.
These confrontations come after numerous Arab leaders have denounced Trump’s decision on Jerusalem in forceful and aggressive terms.
Meanwhile, at the same forum, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Trump’s move reflected his “Zionist mentality” and that recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was a “red line” for Muslims.
Amid this, Pence is due for a visit to Israel too.
The former Indiana governor’s trip was delayed by several days so that he could be in Washington to try and push through a tax reform bill the president supports. He is expected to arrive in Israel from Cairo on Wednesday and stay for three days.
While in the Jewish state, he will speak at the Knesset, visit Yad Vashem and light a menorah at the Western Wall. He will not, however, meet with Abbas or Palestinian officials — all of whom refused to see him in protest over the Jerusalem decision.
In the President’s address from the White House, Trump defied worldwide warnings and insisted that after repeated failures to achieve peace a new approach was long overdue, describing his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the seat of Israel’s government as merely based on reality.
It is not yet clear whether Greenblatt will be able to meet with any Palestinian officials, including Abbas. But he will meet with European Union representative on the Quartet Fernando Gentilini, the White House official said, in a bid to rescue one of Trump’s “highest priorities” of a Mideast peace deal.
“The President remains as committed to peace as ever,” the official added.