Palestinians in the West Bank were unimpressed by Abbas’s and Trump’s statements in Bethlehem, saying they offered little new.
“[Trump’s] speech was not good. It was medium,” says Ramadan Abdalkareem, a 19-year-old medical lab student from Ramallah.
“He seemed to forget the name of the Saudi king,” he says, referring to Trump’s habit of saying King Solomon instead of King Salman.
“From Abbas it’s always the same message. We want to build bridges not walls,” he adds.
Palestinians in Bethlehem show support for prisoners hunger striking in Israeli jails as US President Donald Trump meets with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in the city, on May 23, 2017 (Dov Lieber/Times of Israel)
Abdalkareem says it would have been a “nice gesture” had Trump mentioned the Palestinian prisoners hunger strike, now on its 37th day.
Omar Awawdi, 19, who is also a medical lab student, says the speech “was like a play. We didn’t see any new ideas.”
“We want to see work on the ground, not just talking,” he adds.
— Dov Lieber
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