{"id":11063,"date":"2017-03-10T21:05:25","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T21:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/trump-middle-east-palestinian-leader-invited-to-white-house\/"},"modified":"2017-03-10T21:05:25","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T21:05:25","slug":"trump-middle-east-palestinian-leader-invited-to-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/trump-middle-east-palestinian-leader-invited-to-white-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Middle East: Palestinian leader invited to White House"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"AImage copyright EPA
Image caption The idea of creating an independent Palestinian state that co-exists with Israel underpinned Middle East peace policy for decades <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

US President Donald Trump has invited Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to visit the White House "very soon".<\/p>\n

He extended the offer in a phone call on Friday with the Palestinian Authority president, their first contact since Mr Trump took office.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February. <\/p>\n

At that meeting, Mr Trump dropped a long-standing US commitment to a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.<\/p>\n

A "two-state solution" to the decades-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is the declared goal of their leaders and the international community.<\/p>\n

It is shorthand for a final settlement that would see the creation of an independent state of Palestine within pre-1967 ceasefire lines in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, living peacefully alongside Israel.<\/p>\n

The UN, the Arab League, the European Union, Russia and, until now, the US routinely restate their commitment to the concept.<\/p>\n

The policy shift fuelled Palestinian concerns that Washington was becoming even more pro-Israeli under the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

There have been no substantive peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians since US-mediated negotiations broke down in April 2014. <\/p>\n

Mr Trump's spokesman, Sean Spicer, confirmed on Friday that the US president had invited Mr Abbas to the White House "very soon".<\/p>\n

The president told the Palestinian leader they would discuss how to rekindle peace talks, Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n

Media captionNetanyahu and Trump: What are their key priorities?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He said Mr Trump had stressed "his commitment to a peace process that will lead to a real peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis".<\/p>\n

Palestinian officials had indicated before Friday's call that Mr Abbas would press the US president about Israeli settlement-building on occupied land and the importance of a two-state solution.<\/p>\n

During last month's joint press conference, Mr Trump asked Mr Netanyahu to "hold back on settlements for a little bit", appearing to catch the Israeli leader unawares.<\/p>\n

The US Senate on Thursday approved Mr Trump's controversial nominee for ambassador to Israel.<\/p>\n

David Friedman favours relocating the US embassy to Jerusalem, a highly inflammatory proposal because both Israel and the Palestinians lay claim to the city as their capital.<\/p>\n

The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, met the Palestinian envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, for the first time on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

She tweeted afterwards that the Palestinians should "meet with Israel in direct negotiations rather than looking to the UN to deliver results".<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright EPAImage caption The idea of creating an independent Palestinian state that co-exists with Israel underpinned Middle East peace policy for decades US President Donald Trump has invited Palestinian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}