The following article by David Kenner was posted on the foreignpolicy.com website December 8, 2017:
U.S. officials failed to mention the impending recognition of the holy city as Israel’s capital just days before Trump’s announcement.
Just last week, Palestinian diplomats were cautiously optimistic that U.S. President Donald Trump was on a path that could deliver what the president termed the “ultimate deal” — a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to a senior Palestinian official, their optimism was bolstered by a series of interactions with Trump, culminating in a previously unreported meeting on Nov. 30. The meeting included Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner, Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt, and Deputy National Security Advisor Dina Powell, who met with three senior Palestinian intelligence and diplomatic officials.
The American side, however, did not inform the Palestinian delegation that Trump would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital at the meeting — even though the president had insisted on doing so in internal deliberations days earlier.
The meeting, which was confirmed by a National Security Council official, a former U.S. diplomat, and a senior Palestinian official, was held as the first news reports that the Trump administration would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital were already breaking. The Palestinian delegation asked whether Trump would sign the waiver to prevent the U.S. Embassy from moving to Jerusalem, which the president did sign this week, but the American side did not volunteer the additional information about Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem.
Instead, the meeting focused on Trump’s yet-to-be-released peace plan, which may now be dead in the water. Protests have spreadacross the Arab world in the wake of Trump’s Dec. 6 announcement, and hundreds were wounded and at least one person killed in protests in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip on Friday. Following Trump’s speech, PLO Executive Committee Secretary-General Saeb Erekat declared that the “two-state solution is over” and that the time had come “transform the struggle for one-state with equal rights for everyone living in historic Palestine.”
“This whole thing is not about the status of Jerusalem, it is about the status of Washington,” a Palestinian official told Foreign Policy. “Washington has been seriously damaged as a mediator, and has isolated itself from the global consensus and international law.”
“Washington has been seriously damaged as a mediator, and has isolated itself from the global consensus and international law.”
In an emergency meeting at the U.N. Security Council on Friday, 14 countries on the 15-member council — every country except the United States — opposed the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton told FP that the possibility that the United States would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was discussed with the Palestinians and other Arab leaders throughout the year, but that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was not notified of the final decision until his call with Trump on Dec. 5.
The plan to move the embassy came out of a meeting of Trump’s national security advisors that took place on Nov. 27 — three days before the U.S. team’s meeting with the Palestinian delegation, in which they did not mention the impending move. Trump was expected to drop in on that Nov. 27 meeting for about 15 minutes, but instead stayed for an hour, according to a Middle East analyst familiar with the deliberations. Trump came with “surprisingly detailed questions and he demanded specific answers,” the analyst said. “He made it clear that the status quo was unacceptable.”
The recognition of Jerusalem dashed Palestinian hopes that Trump would emerge as their unlikely champion in Middle East peace negotiations. Palestinian officials pointed to his stated desire to cut “the ultimate deal,” and his appointment of Kushner as evidence that he was serious about reaching a deal. They believed that his status as an outsider meant that he wasn’t beholden to the conventional wisdom of what one Palestinian official termed Washington’s “peace process industry,” and enthusiastic about his desire to focus on a comprehensive, conflict-ending deal within a short period of time — an approach they believed would make it more difficult for the Israelis to drag out negotiations while expanding West Bank settlements.