Trump Middle East envoy meets Netanyahu

One of Donald Trump’s top policy advisers on the Middle East is in Israel this week meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Jason Greenblatt, a lawyer for Trump who has no diplomatic experience, is to hold talks on the prospects for renewed peace talks, after a 20-minute telephone call between Trump and Abbas on Friday.

Following the meeting with the Israeli PM on Monday, Greenblatt tweeted that they “discussed regional situation, how progress towards peace with Palestinians can be made & settlements.”

Netanyahu was one of the first world leaders to visit Trump in Washington, D.C. last month, as the new U.S. president gave a press conference in which he said he was not wedded to the idea of a two-state solution.

Greenblatt, who deals mostly with Trump’s real estate, is the second lawyer to be given a key foreign policy job, after pro-settlement bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

Friedman immediately called for the U.S. Embassy to be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, despite both Israelis and Palestinians claiming Jerusalem as their capital. Previous U.S. presidents have said this would be a matter for negotiation.