In 2016, then-US Secretary of State John Kerry hosted a secret meeting in the Jordanian city of Aqaba in an attempt jump-start the search for peace in the Middle East according to an exclusive report by the leading Israeli journalist Barak Ravid in the newspaper Haaretz. Ravid reported that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu attended the parley along with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sissi and Jordan’s King Abdallah II. The meeting came after Netanyahu backtracked on the implementation of a series of measures he had offered for the Palestinians in the course of his discussions with Kerry, citing coalition concerns. The SecState responded by putting together the six-point plan that also formed the basis for Kerry’s final speech in which he admonished the Israelis that it was a choice between the two-state solution as he saw it or ultimate war. According to Ravid’s report, Kerry visited Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on February 21 and then flew to Aqaba aboard a Jordanian military transport plane with the Jordanian foreign minister. After a day of “dramatic” discussions – notable being the willingness of both the Jordanian king and Egyptian president to back recognition of Israel’s Jewish character as demanded by Netanyahu – all returned to their respective nations to try and sell the plan. Although no tangible progress appears to have been made, Ravid relates the ensuing domestic political haggling that has taken place since the Aqaba summit and the allusions to the Kerry plan Netanyahu has made: specifically, invoking the Arab Peace Initiative at the press conference when Avigdor Liberman was sworn in as defense minister and at last week’s White House press conference when he called for a regional peace deal.