President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is joining President Trump’s attorney Jason Greenblatt on yet another visit to the Middle East this week, to help push along the much desired peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, a White House official told the Wall Street Journal Sunday.
Kushner and Greenblatt are expected to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and with Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. Greenblatt is arriving on Monday, and Kushner on Wednesday.
According to the anonymous official, Kushner and Greenblatt plan to “continue conversations” with both sides, but any notion of an actual peace accord would require much more discussions.
“It is important to remember that forging a historic peace agreement will take time and to the extent that there is progress, there are likely to be many visits by both Mr. Kushner and Mr. Greenblatt, sometimes together and sometimes separately, to the region and possibly many trips by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to Washington, D.C., or other locations as they pursue substantive talks,” the White House official said, without attribution.
President Trump desperately needs a win somewhere these days, as several news reports have suggested Special Counsel and Former FBI Director Mueller plans to interview key national security officials about Trump’s attempts an end the investigation of his original national security adviser, Michael Flynn, over contacts he allegedly had with Russia’s ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak. Or, as the President put it in one of his tweets: “They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. Nice.”
Kushner, too, is reportedly under investigation by Mueller, who is looking into his business dealings with Russian bankers and diplomats.
Kushner and Greenblatt organized the President’s Trump’s May visit to Israel, where he met with Netanyahu and Abbas. Now, the White House source said, “President Trump has made it clear that working toward achieving a lasting peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians is a top priority for him – he strongly believes that peace is possible.”