Jordan King tells US Jewish leaders he has ‘no idea’ what’s in Trump peace plan

Jordan’s King Abdullah told the Jewish American organisations on Friday that he has “no idea” what is included in the Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan, reported Haaretz.

Citing unnamed sources, Haaretz said that Abdullah told the meeting’s participants that he has not seen any plan, and does not believe any other Arab leaders have either: “I just don’t know”, he told the group, which met the monarch ahead of the UN General Assembly gathering in New York.

The sources told Haaretz that while “Abdullah didn’t directly criticise the Trump administration’s policy on the Israeli-Palestinian issue”, he “reiterated that the Arab states will never be able to support a plan that falls short of the decades-long formula for a two-state solution”.

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He described discussion of alternatives, such as a Jordanian-Palestinian confederacy or a Palestinian autonomous region, as a “waste of time”.

Haaretz said the hour-long meeting on Friday was held with individuals representing “large, mainstream Jewish groups” in the US, and the king was accompanied by Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.

During the discussion, Abdullah also expressed concern about the Trump administration’s significant cuts in aid to the Palestinians, asking rhetorically what would happen if UNRWA is no longer able to operate its schools in the West Bank and Gaza because of Trump’s budget cuts.

US decision to cut UNRWA funding – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]