Trump’s Mideast team to push peace plan in region....

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says President Donald Trump’s Mideast negotiating team will visit the region 'next week' as it finalizes its as-yet unveiled Israeli-Palestinian peace plan and will hold talks on deteriorating conditions in the Gaza Strip. The trip comes as officials say the Trump administration is near completion of the plan with an eye on a possible release this summer.

The National Security Council said Wednesday that senior adviser Jared Kushner and special representative for international negotiations Jason Greenblatt would travel to Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. It said they would discuss “the next stages of the peace effort” and get ideas from regional leaders about “remaining questions the White House peace team has.”

No stop in the Palestinian territories is planned, although the NSC said the itinerary may be expanded. However, the prospect of Palestinian interest in the peace proposal appears dim. Peace talks have been frozen since 2014, and Palestinian leaders have been boycotting high-level talks with U.S. officials for months,

I watched the entire U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem ceremony and one word/phrase that I did not hear was 'undivided Jerusalem', hmm?

BTW, My favorite speakers were...

Reuven Rivlin the President of Israel and the PM Benjamin Netanyahu

Opening ceremony of the US embassy in Jerusalem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9jXnQBObxw

Revelation 16:19 Now the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath.

Tick tock...

Thanks again SJ...

Seems like one of the themes in the article was an allusion to new leadership for the Palestinians.

That could shake things loose. It probably is necessary to move beyond the old animosity.

Longer term, if Egypt and Saudi Arabia are real partners, they could absorb quite a bit of the Palestinian population, by opening employment and immigration opportunities to them.

A million over five or ten years would transform Israeli demographics.

The major Saudi development project of Neom is an easy day’s drive from the West Bank, and just 2-3 hours from Eilat.

Egypt is working to develop a Dubai-like free trade zone at the Red Sea mouth of the Suez Canal (Ain Sokhna, just an hour from Cairo), with Dubai Ports World guiding the development of its policies and infrastructure. A similar effort at the Northern end of the Suez would be about a four hour drive from Gaza. More simply, a tax-favored free trade zone for investment could simply be declared across the Egyptian border from Gaza in Arish, like for the factories that are built just over the Mexican Border.

More broadly, both countries could open a favored immigration status for Israeli Arabs, and absorb many across their whole countries. Palestinians are relatively urbane and well educated Arabic speakers, compared to much of the Arabic-speaking world.

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