Iranian officials could sabotage U.S. efforts to broker a deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians, according to one of President Trump’s top advisers on the issue.
“Iran is very likely a significant spoiler to our efforts — if we’re lucky enough to actually get traction on negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians,” Jason Greenblatt, the White House special representative for international negotiations, said Monday.
Greenblatt has been working with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to craft a proposal that they have hoped would succeed in ending that historically intractable conflict. Iran has been identified as the force that has motivated major Arab powers to work more openly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But Greenblatt, speaking just days after a major international showcase of the economic components of the plan in Bahrain, struck a pessimistic note.
“It’s a little bit connected to what’s going on with Iran, generally; there are other spoilers as well,” Greenblatt told the Christians United for Israel Annual Summit in Washington, D.C. “We’re just going to have to do everything we can to make sure that they don’t undermine our efforts, they don’t cause mischief, significant trouble. We are watching it closely, but it’s not something I can discuss in public.”
Greenblatt isn’t the first administration official to highlight the connection between Iran and Palestinian terror groups. Nikki Haley, then-ambassador to the United Nations, blamed “Hamas terrorists, backed by Iran” for the outbreak of violence that followed Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem last year.
“You really have two governments: You have the Palestinian Authority and you have Hamas right now,” Greenblatt added Monday while discussing intra-Palestinian politics. “We cannot make a comprehensive peace unless we make sure that we are dealing with the representatives of all of the Palestinian people.”
The comments are hardly an overture to Hamas, however. “Hamas is a terrorist organization that seeks the destruction of Israel,” Vice President Mike Pence said at the summit earlier in the day. “And the United States will never negotiate with terrorist Hamas.”
Pence dismissed “the cynics out there [who] say the president’s dreams for peace are too big,” but Greenblatt emphasized that the Palestinian factions are twin difficulties. He noted at the outset of his remarks that the Palestinian Authority boycotted the economic conference that Kushner convened in Bahrain last month.
“Obviously, I pray for our success,” Greenblatt said. “But the reality is, this is a very, very, very difficult file. Enormously complex. If we fail, I pray for the safety and security of Israel and I think we will focus on that both in President Trump’s current term and, hopefully, if he wins a second term.”
The details of the peace plan are still a secret. Kushner told world leaders in February that he would delay the release of the plan until after Israel’s April elections, but Netanyahu’s inability to broker a power-sharing agreement with rival parties led to the scheduling of new elections. That could leave Netanyahu in an interim status until November, as the U.S. presidential elections kick into high gear.
“The obvious next step is we need to decide when and how to unveil the political plan,” Greenblatt said. “President Trump will decide the right time to do that.”
