Nearly 100 leaders of US Jewish organizations will travel to Jordan Tuesday to
meet King Abdullah II and show support for his sponsorship of last month’s
low-level Israeli-Palestinian talks.
The Conference of Presidents of Major
American Jewish Organizations, currently holding their annual meeting in
Jerusalem, is scheduled to meet both Abdullah and Foreign Minister Nasser
Judeh.
The organization issued a statement saying that in these
“turbulent times” it wanted to meet the King and “commend him for Jordan’s role
– and his in particular – in supporting negotiations between Israel and the
Palestinians, and seeking to be a source of stability in a region in
turmoil.”
Malcolm Hoenlein, the group’s executive vice president, has met
regularly over the years with various Arab leaders, and in December 2010 went to
Damascus to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Among the issues
expected to be discussed in Jordan are Iran, the turmoil in the region, and the
Israeli-Palestinian talks, which are once again stymied.
Israel and the
Palestinians met five times in Jordan in January, amid hope the meetings would
lead to a positive dynamic and the start of more substantive talks.
Those
hopes were not realized, and the last meeting was held on January 25, with the
Palestinians saying they would not continue the talks until Israel ended all
settlement construction, released a number of Palestinians prisoners and
accepted the 1967 lines as the baseline of future talks.
Israel has said
it will not continue the talks until it becomes clear whether Hamas will be part
of a new Palestinian unity government as a result of the Fatah-Hamas unity
agreement signed recently in Doha.
“We have had a long relationship with
the King and his late father,” the Conference’s statement said. “Jordan is a key
party in the region, and we value greatly the strong relationship between the
Kingdom and Israel.”