White House: Abbas rhetoric ‘has prevented peace for years’

A senior White House official insists US President Donald Trump “remains as committed to peace as ever” after his recognition last week of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The official blasts Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s recent statement rejecting a US role in the peace process and threatening to void past peace agreements over the move.

“This rhetoric, which has prevented peace for years, is not surprising as we anticipated reactions like this,” the US official says. “We will remain hard at work putting together our plan, which will benefit the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.”

The president’s words were distorted, the official says, and “it is also important to ignore the distortions and instead focus on what the President actually said last week — the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem are subject to final status negotiations between the parties, the United States continues to take no position on any final status issues and the United States would support a two-state solution if agreed to by both sides.”

The official adds: “We will continue to work on our plan for peace that we hope will offer the best outcome for both peoples and look forward to unveiling it when it is ready and the time is right.”