White House letters to Palestinians show continued outreach from peace team
The Jerusalem Post obtained full copies of the letters sent from the White House.
By MICHAEL WILNERUpdated: MARCH 25, 2018 13:56The White House is pictured in Washington D.C.(photo credit: REUTERS)
WASHINGTON – Senior Trump administration officials reached out to the Palestinian Authority’s Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and Palestinian General Intelligence director Majid Faraj in letters last week after assassination attempts in Gaza nearly took both their livePA"s Hamdallah safe after explosion near convoy in Gaza, March 13, 2018 (Reuters)The letters, written by Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, and Jason Greenblatt, his special representative for international negotiations, mark some of the first known direct communications between White House officials and PA leadership since the president’s decision in December to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.Kushner and Greenblatt wrote to Hamdallah and Faraj that the attack on them “underscores that only the Palestinian Authority, in cooperation with regional and international partners, can provide Gaza with a freer, more prosperous future in which Gazans can fully utilize their potential. Gaza needs responsible and responsive governance – not militant and extremist groups that seek conflict and are profoundly unfit to govern.”The letters were obtained by The Jerusalem Post, alongside one sent by Greenblatt to the family of Lt. Hadar Goldin, an IDF officer slain in the Gaza Strip during the 2014 war. That letter expressed the administration’s commitment to pressure Hamas to return Israelis held in the strip as part of its larger Gaza reconstruction effort.Greenblatt wrote to the Goldin family that during a Gaza conference he and Kushner hosted at the White House recently, “I delivered remarks to the assembled representatives... [that] Hamas must return the missing IDF soldiers who were taken by Hamas, as well as the missing Israeli civilians. I hope that I can count on all of you to work with me on this important humanitarian situation as well, and the same way I encouraged you to meet with Israelis in the Gaza border area, and Palestinians from Gaza to learn their stories, I encourage you to meet these families as well.”Read the full letter to Hamdallah and Faraj here, and to the Goldin family here.
