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Senior White House Official: No Need for Equivalency between Israelis and Palestinians

(Times of Israel) Raphael Ahren - A senior White House official this week dismissed the concept that the U.S. must be an "honest broker" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as "a vestige of talking points from decades ago." "We don't believe that in order for us to work on a peace effort we need to have an equivalency, where we can only say certain things about Israel if at the same time we also say something about the Palestinians. Not only does that not work, we don't think it's right. We say what's on our mind, we speak the truth. The truth may be uncomfortable for some people. But we cannot solve the conflict without being open and honest." The official reiterated that meetings with "ordinary Palestinians" were taking place on a regular basis. "They express deep frustration with their leadership. They believe that their leadership has eroded their standing in the world....They want to engage with us and they want to see what is in the plan. They want a better future, and they know the key to that involves the U.S." "We believe we can put forth a credible, realistic and fair plan that could bring this conflict to an end; to dramatically improve Palestinian lives, maintain Israel's security and allow Israel to integrate into the region in a way that even two years ago no one would have imagined it could."
2019-02-06 00:00:00
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