Liberman Advises Greenblatt to Dump Bilateral Approach

“With such intentions [by the Palestinians], I doubt if we can advance anything, let alone a historic or far-reaching agreement,” Liberman told a meeting of his Yisrael Beytenu party.

“Therefore, we call on the American envoy to ditch the bilateral track and instead invest all efforts into a regional arrangement. If all the energy is invested in normalizing ties between Israel and the Arab states, the Palestinians and all others will have no choice but to join the initiative.”

Greenblatt’s return on Monday is said to be part of a series of visits to the region.
He tweeted late Sunday evening that the goal of the trip is, “to continue our efforts to try to achieve a lasting peace.”

This seemed to be at odds with a media report circulated on Sunday in which an unnamed U.S. official said that “the primary purpose of [Greenblatt’s] trip is to meet with the ambassador [Friedman]…Greenblatt will also likely be taking meetings relevant to both the Israelis and the Palestinians.”

A source in the Prime Minister’s office confirmed that Greenblatt has a scheduled meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu on Wednesday.