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First NK, Now the Middle East? Israeli, Arab Leaders Show up at White House for Huge Talks

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While the mainstream media fretted over the departure of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and continued to speculate about supposed Russian collusion and former porn stars, something rather historical happened at the White House on Tuesday.

According to Axios, that historical occurrence was a White House meeting which involved national security officials from Israel along with their counterparts from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to discuss the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Representatives of the Palestinian Authority were invited to participate but declined to attend the important meeting.

“We regret that the Palestinian Authority is not here with us today,” stated U.S. Special Envoy Jason Greenblatt. “This is not about politics. This is about the health, safety and happiness of the people of Gaza, and of all Palestinians, Israelis and Egyptians.”

https://twitter.com/jdgreenblatt45/status/973610977387311104

According to The Jerusalem Post, the historical White House summit had been in the works for several weeks and was only announced the morning of the event. It also featured attendees from Canada and several European nations.

The meeting, which was called for and organized by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of President Donald Trump and senior Middle East peace adviser, was led by Greenblatt, a top assistant to Kushner and Trump and a special representative for international negotiations.

Though this was not the first time that Arab and Israeli officials had sat down for a meeting together, it was the first time such a significant event had occurred at the White House, and it seemed to hint at vastly improved relations between the Sunni Arab states and their Jewish neighbor in the region.

The summit was part of an ongoing process Kushner has been assigned to.

Do you support President Trump's efforts at forging peace in the Middle East?

He is attempting to devise a comprehensive peace plan in regard to the persistent Israeli-Palestinian conflict, of which the situation in Gaza is an important piece — a plan that has nearly been finalized and could be rolled out publicly within the next few weeks or months.

A key focus of the meeting was the dire need of Gazans for things like clean water and food, electricity, employment and health care, all of which needed to be provided without interference from the terrorist organization Hamas, which governs Gaza in an incredibly poor manner (likely because their sole focus is on attacking Israel at every opportunity instead of caring for their own people).

“We all know that none of this will be easy,” stated Greenblatt. “And, everything we do must be done in a way that ensures we do not put the security of Israelis and Egyptians at risk — and that we do not inadvertently empower Hamas, which bears responsibility for Gaza’s suffering.”

“There are no excuses for inaction,” he continued. “Inaction not only leads to more suffering for the Palestinians in Gaza, but also creates more security challenges for Israelis and Egyptians, and pushes the prospects for a comprehensive peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians further and further away.”

That summit came on the heels of a report from The Times of Israel, citing various Arab media outlets, of a series of secret meetings hosted by Egypt in Cairo recently between top Israeli and Saudi officials, a “significant development” in what is rumored to be a  warming relationship between the two nations.

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Those meetings were said to have dealt with not only finding solutions to the Palestinian problem, but also the mutual economic interests of Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea region.

Meanwhile, as the U.S. media focuses on stories of palace intrigue, the thoroughly debunked Russian collusion narrative and alleged affairs from a dozen years ago, President Trump appears to be moving steadily toward forging major peace plans on both the Korean peninsula as well as across the Middle East.

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Ben Marquis is a writer who identifies as a constitutional conservative/libertarian. He has written about current events and politics for The Western Journal since 2014. His focus is on protecting the First and Second Amendments.
Ben Marquis has written on current events and politics for The Western Journal since 2014. He reads voraciously and writes about the news of the day from a conservative-libertarian perspective. He is an advocate for a more constitutional government and a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, which protects the rest of our natural rights. He lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, with the love of his life as well as four dogs and four cats.
Birthplace
Louisiana
Nationality
American
Education
The School of Life
Location
Little Rock, Arkansas
Languages Spoken
English
Topics of Expertise
Politics




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