Al-Hayat Reports Trump Peace Initiative will be Revealed within a Month

Having confused and confounded Israelis and Palestinians alike with abrupt policy about-faces but having offered barely enough substance to allow anything more than speculation about his well-hidden end game, President Donald Trump has apparently now heard enough and according to the London-based newspaper Al-Hayat will be revealing his new plan for the parties within a month’s time. The great expectations that grew day-by-day in the run-up to his visit to the Middle East — that he would call a trilateral summit during his trip or that he would announce moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and offset the Arab blowback by sending a major gesture their way – never materialized. But those close to President Trump did make clear that he has indeed signaled that the game is on: that he believes the deal can be done. From here on it will be a matter of how and when rather than can or if. Clearly, by the time Air Force One faded over the horizon, the Palestinians were the more disappointed party, having believed the excellent sessions with designated negotiator Jason Greenblatt and the unusually warm meeting between President Trump and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas were a turning point. But the over-the-top spectacle of warmth and fuzziness Trump permitted Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, his family and entourage of political intimates was, according to sources in Ramallah speaking on condition of anonymity, a tough act to swallow. But none of that will matter if President Trump does, indeed, reveal a new initiative and if that initiative is not a rehash of the succession of failed attempts at peace making pursued by each of his predecessors. Stay tuned.