WASHINGTON: The White House is to renew efforts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, officials said Friday, despite outrage over President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Senior administration officials said efforts to push the process forward will be rekindled as soon as next week, in the hope that anger at Trump’s move will subside.
Trump on Dec, 6 announced a break with decades of American policy, effectively ignoring Palestinian claims on the Holy City.
The decision has sparked almost universal diplomatic condemnation and deadly protests in the Palestinian territories.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas — 82 years old and facing the prospect of entering the history books as the leader who “lost Jerusalem” — took the dramatic move of canceling a planned meeting with Vice President Mike Pence.
The vice president is due to arrive in Jerusalem on Wednesday, although he is not slated to meet Palestinian leaders.
“We understand that the Palestinians may need a bit of a cooling off period, that’s fine,” said one senior administration official.
The White House hopes that Pence’s visit can begin to draw a line under the issue.
“Obviously the last couple of weeks in the region have been a reaction to the Jerusalem decision,” said a second senior administration official. “We’ve seen a lot of the emotion that has been displayed on that.”
“This trip is kind of part of the ending of that chapter and the beginning of the next chapter... We still continue to be focused on a peace process and how we ultimately bring that situation to a conclusion.”
The vice president will be joined in Israel by Trump’s chief peace negotiator Jason Greenblatt, who has not met his Palestinian interlocutors since Dec. 6.
“We will be ready when the Palestinians are ready to reengage,” said the first official.
But hopes for a quick resumption of peace talks may prove optimistic. On Friday alone, four Palestinians were killed and hundreds wounded in violence with Israeli forces across the Palestinian territories.
Trump’s move has called into question whether the US can serve as a fair arbiter, a role it has played for much of the last half century.
Trump came to office claiming he could make “the ultimate deal,” but that effort now risks being derailed by his own actions.
“We aren’t setting any kind of deadlines or timeframes. There’s one thing I’m sure of in this job, is that any deadline we set, we will blow past,” said a US official.
US plans Middle East peace push after ‘cooling off’ over Jerusalem
US plans Middle East peace push after ‘cooling off’ over Jerusalem
First responders enter devastated Aleppo neighborhood after days of deadly fighting
- The US-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Daesh group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria’s national army
ALEPPO, Syria: First responders on Sunday entered a contested neighborhood in Syria’ s northern city of Aleppo after days of deadly clashes between government forces and Kurdish-led forces. Syrian state media said the military was deployed in large numbers.
The clashes broke out Tuesday in the predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Achrafieh and Bani Zaid after the government and the Syrian Democratic Forces, the main Kurdish-led force in the country, failed to make progress on how to merge the SDF into the national army. Security forces captured Achrafieh and Bani Zaid.
The fighting between the two sides was the most intense since the fall of then-President Bashar Assad to insurgents in December 2024. At least 23 people were killed in five days of clashes and more than 140,000 were displaced amid shelling and drone strikes.
The US-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Daesh group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria’s national army. Some of the factions that make up the army, however, were previously Turkish-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
The Kurdish fighters have now evacuated from the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood to northeastern Syria, which is under the control of the SDF. However, they said in a statement they will continue to fight now that the wounded and civilians have been evacuated, in what they called a “partial ceasefire.”
The neighborhood appeared calm Sunday. The United Nations said it was trying to dispatch more convoys to the neighborhoods with food, fuel, blankets and other urgent supplies.
Government security forces brought journalists to tour the devastated area, showing them the damaged Khalid Al-Fajer Hospital and a military position belonging to the SDF’s security forces that government forces had targeted.
The SDF statement accused the government of targeting the hospital “dozens of times” before patients were evacuated. Damascus accused the Kurdish-led group of using the hospital and other civilian facilities as military positions.
On one street, Syrian Red Crescent first responders spoke to a resident surrounded by charred cars and badly damaged residential buildings.
Some residents told The Associated Press that SDF forces did not allow their cars through checkpoints to leave.
“We lived a night of horror. I still cannot believe that I am right here standing on my own two feet,” said Ahmad Shaikho. “So far the situation has been calm. There hasn’t been any gunfire.”
Syrian Civil Defense first responders have been disarming improvised mines that they say were left by the Kurdish forces as booby traps.
Residents who fled are not being allowed back into the neighborhood until all the mines are cleared. Some were reminded of the displacement during Syria’s long civil war.
“I want to go back to my home, I beg you,” said Hoda Alnasiri.
