JERUSALEM (JTA) — Jared Kushner arrived in Israel on a Mideast trip to stoke interest in the administration’s Middle East peace plans.
The senior White House adviser, along with Jason Greenblatt, President Trump’s special Mideast envoy, met on Wednesday evening with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Also attending were U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer, according to the Prime Minister’s Office.
A senior White House official said before the meeting that Kushner and his team would report back to Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the national security team to “discuss the many potential next steps to expand upon the success of the Bahrain workshop,” the Jerusalem Post reported. In June, Bahrain hosted a conference that rolled out the economic portion of the Trump administration’s peace plan.
The official denied a report in the Israeli daily Yediot Acharonot that the peace plan would be rolled out to Arab leaders at a meeting in Camp David early next month.
Earlier on Wednesday Kushner met in Amman with Jordan’s King Abdullah II to discuss the peace plan and its economic component.
Abdullah reportedly told Kushner that the peace plan must be based on a two-state solution, with eastern Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian lawsuit. The White House hasn’t committed to a two-state plan.
Kushner also is scheduled to visit Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
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