Trump’s Mideast Envoy Faces Pushback in UN Security Council

An Israeli-Palestinian peace plan cannot rely on global consensus, inconclusive international law and “unclear” United Nations resolutions, US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, told the UN Security Council (UNSC) on Tuesday. His statements were met with rebuttals from several members, including Germany, Russia, Britain, France and Indonesia. “For us, international law is not menu a la carte,” Germany’s UN ambassador, Christoph Heusgen, told the council. French UN Ambassador Nicolas de Riviere added that France would support any peace effort “so long as this aligns with the approach that we have set out together, so long as this adheres to international law, specifically all resolutions of the Security Council.” Greenblatt and senior Trump adviser Jared Kushner have not definitively said if the American plan calls for a two-state solution, a goal of past US peace efforts and one long endorsed by the UNSC. “If that were achievable, I think we’d already have peace. It’s not achievable,” Greenblatt told reporters, adding, however, that the Trump Administration’s plan “does not contain a one-state solution.”