28 May, 2017
During his earlier stop in Israel, Trump declared Tuesday that both the Israeli and Palestinian leaders are "ready to reach for peace".
The White House said that in talks with Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday, "President Trump underscored the United States' ironclad commitment to Israel's security, including to the maintenance of Israel's qualitative military edge".
Secondly, after meeting Mahmoud Abbas, that "he is ready to reach a peace deal.' In a joint press conference in Bethlehem, Trump issued a strong message to the PA when he said: "Peace can never take root in an environment where violence is tolerated, funded and even rewarded".
Abbas considers a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be non-negotiable, and he stressed his position on Tuesday. In fact, Netanyahu continued, "For the first time in my lifetime, I see a real hope for peace".
Unlike Obama, who infamously claimed during a speech at Cairo University, "I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear", Trump made it clear he feels no such calling.
Trump later visited the Western Wall and Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, and spoke at the Israel Museum, where he focused on terrorism.
So, while there is that cynicism, there are also people on both sides who think that actually Trump perhaps might be the one to seal the deal. I will call them, from now on, losers, because that's what they are: "losers".
From Israel, Mr Trump departed for Italy for an audience with Pope Francis. Critics will say U.S. foreign policy is for sale to the highest bidder under Trump, the billionaire dealmaker. This tension will remain until a peaceful solution is ultimately found between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
"The freedom and independence of the Palestinian people is the key to peace and stability in our region and the world, so that the children of Palestine and Israel enjoy a secure, stable and prosperous future".
Trump was in a bilateral meeting with President Reuven Rivlin of Israel during his ongoing diplomacy tour when he implied that the country was not, in fact in the Middle East. On Tuesday morning, Trump met with Abbas in Bethlehem, traveling across the barrier surrounding much of the biblical city.
He made these remarks in the presence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara.
A commentary in Israel's centrist Yediot Aharonot newspaper said that after two days of waiting for Trump's keynote address "the only thing we could learn from that speech was how to say nothing with a whole lot of words". In Riyadh on 20 May, US secretary of state Rex Tillerson said he was prepared to talk to his Iranian counterpart.
Allowing them to do so could have led to accusations that Washington was implicitly recognising Israel's unilateral claim of sovereignty over the site, which would break with years of USA and global precedent.
Many shops in the area were told by police to close their doors on Wednesday afternoon ahead of a planned march by hardline Israeli nationalists through the city's Muslim Quarter and towards the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site.
