President Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office Monday to discuss the reveal of the Middle East peace plan which is scheduled to be announced at noon Tuesday.
In a statement sent to The Foreign Desk from the White House, President Trump emphasized that the Israelis and Palestinians “have to make peace” before there can be peace in the region, adding that “people have been working” on the deal and its specific details for many years.
The President underscored the White House’s attention to this deal, stating that the key is to “get other people to agree with it also,” alluding to the resistance on the part of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to agree to any negotiation presented by Washington, including the previous economic recommendation introduced last June in Bahrain.
The Palestinian leadership boycotted the “Peace to Prosperity” workshop hosted in Manama where President Trump’s advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner outlined the economic part of the “deal of the century.”
The second part of the peace plan, or the political portion, which has already been rejected by President Abbas is expected to be the most detailed path to peace put before the Israelis and Palestinians to date.
“The deal of the century is the opportunity of the century, and we’re not going to pass it by,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said at the White House meeting.
Prime Minister Netanyahu thanked President Trump for his friendship and called him the “greatest friend that Israel has had in the White House.”
“We’ve had a tremendous almost three-year relationship,” President Trump said about his rapport with Prime Minister Netanyahu.
“The relationship, I think, has never been better,” President Trump said, also mentioning that Bibi’s opponent, Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz, will be joining the President in a separate meeting ahead of the peace plan’s roll out.
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