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President Obama Invites Abbas to the White House for Post-Netanyahu Meeting


Following a series of negative comments by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas about US Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace mission after meeting with the SecState in Paris on consecutive days last week, Kerry’s boss has apparently decided to throw some support Kerry’s way. The assist comes in the form of an unexpected invitation to visit the White House to take place after a scheduled early March meeting between the President and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Abbas said after the Paris meetings with Kerry that the SecState’s framework for talks fails to give the Palestinians what they need to continue in the process. Comments were also heard from officials in Ramallah suggesting that Kerry’s positions were indistinguishable from those of Prime Minister Netanyahu. The White House invitation is seen as both a substantive effort to work through the issues and to present the appearance of parity for the Palestinians after the Netanyahu visit and the active efforts by a number of lawmakers on Capitol Hill to have Netanyahu again address a joint session of Congress.