The World Trump hosts Palestinian, sees Mideast peace

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A4 THE BOSTON GLOBE The World THURSDAY, MAY 4, 2017 Trump hosts Palestinian, sees Mideast peace Commits himself to toughest deal in the world Hamas criticized by reler baker for holding WASHINGTON - President Trump plunged into the other 2 ill Israelis side or buddie bast peacemak ing on Wednesday as he met for the first time with the Palestin. lan leader, Mahmoud Abbas, and committed himself to pull- ing off "the toughest deal" in the world.

Hosting Abbas at the White House, Trump said he'd do "whatever is necessary" to bring together Palestinians and Israelis, who have been warring over the same small patch of land for generations. But he gave no sense of how he would achieve such a goal or what an agreement might look like. *We want to create peace be- tween Israel and the Palestin- ians," Trump said.

"We will get it done. We will be working so hard to get it done.

It's been a long time." Turning to Abbas, the presi- By Ruth Eglash WASHINGTON POST JERUSALEM - A day after the militant Islamist group Hamas updated, and some say softened, its founding charter, an inter- nationa human richts watchdog slammed the group as "cruel" and "tor- turous" over its continued incarceration of two Israe- Tis with serious mental health conditions.

In a report published Tuesday, Human Rights Watch shed light on the dis- appearance of Avera Mang- istu, an Israeli Jew of Ethio- pian descent, and Hisham al-Sayed, a Bedouin Israeli.

Both were seen on Israel dent added, "I think there's a very, very good chance, and I think you feel the same way." Abbas, 82, who was on hand for the historic signing of the President Trump hosted Mahmoud Abbas Wednesday. The Palestinian leader was at the 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords.

Oslo Accords on the White tlements in the occupied West Palestinians have insisted on for vears: the creation of an in- dependent Palestinian state he did feel optimistic that Trump might be the president who finally builds on that ini- tial agreement to forge a final resolution to the conflict.

Praising Trump's "coura geous leadership," wisdom" and "great negotiating ability" Abbas said. "We believe that we can be partners with you to bring about a historic peace" Abbas implored Trump to understand the Palestinian per- spective. "It's time for Israel to end its occupation of our peo- ple and of our land," he said.

"After 50 years, we are the only remaining people in the world who still live under occupation.

We are aspiring and want to achieve our freedom and our dignity and our right to self-de- termination But the scale of that chal- lenge was quickly made clear as Abbas repeated the conditions ed before the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital; the right of return for refugees; and freedom for prisoners in Israeli cells.

As a package, that formula- tion has been a nonstarter for Israel, which itself has shown no sign since Trump took office of backing off from any of its own longstanding positions.

Trump has made clear that to him, and he has abandoned the lonetime Us commitment to the so-called two-state solu- Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in February, Trump said he would be fine with a two-state as the two sides were satisfied. He has also pressed Netan- yahu to hold back on new set- tions in any negotiations.

But he made no mention of any such issues in his comments with Abbas on Wednesday. He did encourage Abbas to do more to discourage Palestin- ian incitement against Israelis. "There can be no lasting peace unless Palestinian leaders speak with a unified voice against incitement to violence and hate," Trump said. "There's such hatred.

But hopefully there won't be such hatred for very long" Abbas insisted Palestinians don't preach hatred. "1 affirm to you that we are raising our vouth, our children, our grand children on a culture of peace," he said, a contention Israeli of- ficials wouki reject.

Trump did not publicly press Abbas to end financial pay- ments to the families of suicide bombers and to other Palestin- ians who attack Israelis and Americans, a pracuice Israel and its supporters say amounts to subsidizing terrorism.

Re- publican senators have intro- duced legislation to cut off US aid to the Palestinian Authority of succeeding where no presi- dent has, Trump has devoted a lot of his time to meeting not only with Netanyahu but lead- ers from Jordan, Egypt and e sewhere in the arab world He and Jared Kushner, his son- There can be no lasting peace unless Palestinian leaders speak with a unified voice against incitement to violence.' PRESIDENT TRUMP unless the Palestinians stop making such payments, and in recent days they urged Trump to raise the matter with Abbas.

Intrigued by the possibility has been assigned to play a reading role in pesotations have discussed what aides call an outside-in approach in which the United States works with Arab states around the re- sion to neap brins Israels and Palestinians together.

Such an approach has not worked in the past, but Trump has supreme confidence in his own negotiating skills after a metime in res estate *Over the course of my life- time, I've always heard that perhaps the toughest deal to make is the deal between the Is- raelis and the Palestinians." Trump said.

"Let's see if we can prove them wrong." Gaza, Mangistu in Septem- ber 2014 and al-Sayed in April 2015. Hamas has not said the men are in Gaza but has not denied it. For two years, oficials from the Strip have made coy references to them.

Two weeks ago, Hamas leader Khaled Me- shal said "any information about Israeli captives would carry a price" - indi- cating the men are to be used as barming chios in exchange for Hamas com- batants in Isracli jails. Hamas officials inter- viewed for the Human Rights Watch report sug- gested the Israelis were prisoners of war because every Israeli male serves in the army.

But a Human Rights Watch investigation revealed both were rejected from military service on mental health grounds. Hamas's refusal to con- firm Is apparent pro longed detention" of the men is "cruel and indefen- sible, the group said.

Cite this item

"The World Trump hosts Palestinian, sees Mideast peace," Philadelphia Inquirer, 12 March 2017. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2017-015. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2017-015