Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Trump Beefs Up Mideast Team In Anticipation Of Rolling Out Peace Plan

The Trump administration is increasing the Middle East policy team at the White House as it inches closer to unveiling its long-awaited Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, the Associated Press reported Friday.

The National Security Council last week began approaching other agencies for volunteers. The team will work for President Donald Trump’s Mideast peace advisors Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, according to U.S. officials.

The team, which is being set up to organize the peace plan’s public presentation and prepare for possible negotiations, will feature three units: one concentrating on its political and security details, one on its significant economic focus and one on strategic communications, the officials said.

Although Trump officials have long promised a comprehensive package on resolving the conflict, the emerging plan has not been uttered by Kushner, Greenblatt or any other official.

The timing of the release is unclear. The State Department, Pentagon, intelligence agencies and Congress have been asked to direct their staffs to the team for six months to a year, according to the officials.

The agencies declined to comment, but an NSC official said that Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, and Greenblatt, Trump’s special envoy for international negotiations, “are expanding their team and the resources available as they finalize the details and rollout strategy of the peace initiative.”

White House officials say the plan will focus on pragmatic details that will more easily win public support, according to the AP.

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.