Trump’s envoy surprises Israelis, Palestinians

Alarm bells went off last week in Education Minister Naftali Bennet’s right-wing HaBayit HaYehudi party during Jason Greenblatt’s March 13-16 visit. The Israeli right expected the US president’s representative for international negotiations to be a political messiah that would greenlight for the government the continuation of its settlement policy and its de facto annexation policies in Area C.

According to a senior Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) official with direct access to Prime Minister (and Foreign Minister) Benjamin Netanyahu, Greenblatt’s rhetoric was in fact very promising. Greenblatt pushed all the right buttons and used all the right terms, including references to the “unshakable alliance” between the two countries, “a new page in the US-Israeli relationship,” “Israel’s security being of paramount interest to the United States,” “Israel the Jewish state,” etc.

Yet the MFA official noted that for a government whose prime interest is to prevent at any cost a two-state solution, there were also some alarming statements of intention voiced by the US envoy. For instance, Greenblatt emphasized on several occasions during his visit President Donald Trump’s interest in a regional deal and his interest in advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace. While a preference for a two-state solution was not uttered, the implication of a future Palestinian state was obvious. Greenblatt also alluded to a possible summit between Trump, Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, possibly in Cairo later this year.

As it turned out, Greenblatt follows in his master’s tweeting footsteps. But the tweets of the envoy did not really please his hosts. Particularly disturbing were apparently two consecutive tweets he posted while in Jerusalem, one from a synagogue and one from a Palestinian house, with a similar picture of the Western Wall and the mosques.