US President Donald Trump has described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the bigger anathema of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. 

Both leaders of Israel and Palestine are problematic; however, Netanyahu is the bigger problem, Trump said in a meeting last month with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, according to seven Western and Israeli sources, who were either present at or briefed on the meeting, Israeli Haaretz newspaper wrote on Friday.

On September 19, Trump had held a 15-minute meeting with Guterres on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. According to six Western diplomats and one former senior Israeli official, all of whom asked to remain anonymous, at least half of the meeting dealt with the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Trump, who had met with Netanyahu in New York the previous day, told Guterres his impressions of that meeting and his own views on the peace process.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is very old and needs a legacy to leave behind. Netanyahu, in contrast, understands that he’ll never have a president more understanding of Israel’s security needs, Trump told Guterres, adding that Netanyahu would be the harder one to persuade.

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On September 18, Trump met in New York with Netanyahu. There he surprised Netanyahu when, at a joint press event before the meeting, he focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In the days before the meeting, Netanyahu and his staff had repeatedly stressed that the meeting would focus on the Iranian nuclear issue.

Netanyahu told Israeli reporters in a post-meeting briefing that despite the prominence Trump gave the Israeli-Palestinian issue in front of the cameras, at the meeting itself it wasn’t a major topic of discussion.

Netanyahu was likely convincing Trump to get tough with Iran and create problems over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

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A few days after he returned from New York, Netanyahu briefed the Israeli regime’s security cabinet and the ministers about his meeting with Trump.

“I presented our positions to the president,” Netanyahu told the ministers about his meeting with Trump.

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Source: http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/10/07/537836/US-Trump-Israel-Netanyahu-Palestine-Abbas-JCPOA

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The post Netanyahu ‘bigger problem’ in Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Trump first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

NEW YORK – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be meeting here Monday with U.S. President Donald Trump, the first time the two have met since Trump came to Israel in May. Senior Israeli and American officials noted that the meeting, which is scheduled to last an hour, will deal with the Iranian issue and with Trump’s efforts to advance the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

Senior Israeli officials noted that Netanyahu would prefer that the meeting with Trump focus primarily on Iran. Netanyahu will try to persuade the president to work toward withdrawing the United States from the nuclear agreement between Iran and the great powers, which would effectively scuttle it. On October 15 Trump is slated to inform the U.S. Congress if Iran is meeting its obligations under the agreement. Netanyahu wants Trump to announce that the Iranians are not fulfilling their part of the agreement, which would allow Congress to reimpose sanctions on Iran.

Netanyahu’s position contradicts the position of the overwhelming majority of Trump’s senior advisers, as well as the position of Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Senior administration officials are pushing Trump not to pull out of the nuclear agreement and to suffice with steps to increase inspections of Iran’s nuclear installations and to stop its terror activities in the Middle East.

U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, who is also encouraging Trump to stick with the agreement, addressed the issue Sunday in an interview with Fox News, saying that the administration is interested in an immediate increase in oversight of Iran. McMaster, however, refrained from saying whether Trump is seeking to void the agreement, or to uphold it but with more meticulous inspections.

“The IAEA has identified and we’ve identified some of these breaches that Iran has then corrected,” he said. “But what does that tell you about Iranian behavior? They’re not just walking up to the line on the agreement. They’re crossing the line at times. So, there has to be much more rigorous enforcement of the deal and we have to recognize the fundamental flaws in this deal.”

Asked if the president would be prepared to “live with the deal,” McMaster answered: “Well, we have to see what live with it means, right? Live with can’t be giving this regime cover to develop a nuclear capability.”
He added that the current agreement “gave all these benefits to the Iranian regime upfront and these benefits they are now using to foment this humanitarian catastrophe in the greater Middle East.”

Tillerson, who is expected to meet Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Jawad Zarif for the first time of the countries signed the nuclear deal during a conference in New York, told CBS that Iran is “in technical compliance with the deal,” but is violating the spirit of the agreement through its terror activity throughout the Middle East.

“There clearly was an expectation between the parties, the negotiators from the Western parties as well as Iran, that by dealing with this nuclear threat we would lower the tension between Iran and the rest of the world and we would create conditions for Iran to rejoin the community of nations as a productive country that wants stability and wants peace,” said Tillerson.

“But since the nuclear deal has been concluded what we have witnessed is Iran has stepped up its destabilizing activities in Yemen. It’s stepped up its destabilizing activities in Syria. It exports arms to Hezbollah and other terrorist groups. And it continues to conduct a very active ballistic missile program. None of that, I would believe, is consistent with that preamble commitment that was made by everyone,” he said.

On Tuesday Netanyahu is scheduled to address the UN General Assembly, and like many of his previous speeches to that forum he is expected to focus on the Iranian issue. His address, however, is expected to be shorter than his previous ones that generally lasted more than half an hour. During his speech Netanyahu is expected to make a direct appeal to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Netanyahu-Trump meeting is expected to also deal with the Palestinian issues and the U.S. president’s effort to find a way to jump-start the peace process. On Wednesday Trump is expected to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on the same topic.

Senior White House officials have in recent days been trying to reduce expectations from Trump’s meetings with Netanyahu and Abbas, noting that the president has no intention of trying to bring about a breakthrough in the process during the General Assembly session.

Source: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.812825

The post Trump and Netanyahu to Meet Monday, Discuss Iran Nuclear Deal and Israeli-Palestinian Peace first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.