[Washington Examiner] Iranian officials could sabotage U.S. efforts to broker a deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians, according to one of President Trump’s top advisers on the issue."Iran is very likely a significant spoiler to our efforts ‐ if we’re lucky enough to actually get traction on negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians," Jason Greenblatt, the White House special representative for international negotiations, said Monday.
Greenblatt has been working with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to craft a proposal that they have hoped would succeed in ending that historically intractable conflict. Iran has been identified as the force that has motivated major Arab powers to work more openly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But Greenblatt, speaking just days after a major international showcase of the economic components of the plan in Bahrain, struck a pessimistic note.
"It’s a little bit connected to what's going on with Iran, generally; there are other spoilers as well," Greenblatt told the Christians United for Israel Annual Summit in Washington, D.C. "We’re just going to have to do everything we can to make sure that they don’t undermine our efforts, they don’t cause mischief, significant trouble. We are watching it closely, but it’s not something I can discuss in public."