Trump To Meet With Arab and Muslim Leaders on Sidelines of UN General Assembly Meeting

Arab and Muslim leaders attending the United Nations General Assembly at New York this week reportedly will get face time with President Trump, who plans to meet with several officials on ending the war in Gaza and concerns about Israel’s eye on attaining additional land in the West Bank.Axios reports that the White House sent invitations for meetings to the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey. A separate meeting will be held with Persian Gulf leaders from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait, according to the news outlet.The two Arab sources who spoke to Axios said they expect the president to propose establishing a stabilization force for Gaza once the Israeli military withdraws. Gulf countries want assurances from the Trump administration that they will not be attacked for hosting Hamas leaders in exile. Last week, Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation nations met at Doha to denounce Israel’s attack on Hamas members at Qatar’s capital earlier this month, the first Israeli attack on a Gulf nation. The group discussed “reviewing diplomatic and economic relations” with Israel and “initiating legal proceedings against it,” including possibly ejecting Israel from the United Nations, a plan with no viability as long as the United States exercises its veto in the Security Council. In a joint statement the leaders also urged “all states to take all possible legal and effective measures to prevent Israel from continuing its actions against the Palestinian people.” Tuesday’s meetings will be on the sidelines of the annual congregation of the UN General Assembly, which is being convened on the Jewish new year holiday of Rosh Hashanah. During the assembly, Saudi Arabia and France will host an international conference to recognize a Palestinian state. Three Western nations, Australia, Britain, and Canada, announced Sunday that they will join the chorus of 150 nations to formalize recognition.The meetings with Mr. Trump precede Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House on September 29. On Sunday, the prime minister issued a statement denouncing those who seek Palestinian recognition and warned that he has no plans to back down from expanding settlements in the West Bank.“I have a clear message to those leaders who recognize a Palestinian state after the terrible October 7th massacre. You are giving a huge reward to terrorism. And I have another message for you. It will not happen. There will be no Palestinian state west of the Jordan River,” he said.“We doubled Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria and we will continue on this path,” he added, previewing remarks he said he will announce after he returns from America. The UAE has previously issued a red line that Israel’s annexation of parts of the West Bank would cause the collapse of the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and a few of its neighbors. However, leaders of the UAE, along with Abraham Accord signatories Morocco and Bahrain, did not attend the Doha meeting, sending representatives instead. On Sunday, Saudi Arabia sent a similar message to Israeli officials, Israel’s Channel 12 news reports.Last week, Mr. Netanyahu said a free Gaza will emerge when Hamas is defeated, demilitarized, and sent into exile. He proposed fulfilling Mr. Trump’s idea of helping Gazans emigrate to other nations and redeveloping the Gaza Strip into a high-end resort, an idea that Arab leaders rejected as far back as February, though they offered no alternative ideas to resolving the dispute. Among other meetings with Mr. Trump is one with the prime minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif, the Pakistani foreign office announced on Sunday. The prime minister will “participate in a meeting of select Islamic leaders” with Mr. Trump “to exchange views on issues pertaining to regional and international peace and security,” the foreign office posted on X.

Trump To Meet With Arab and Muslim Leaders on Sidelines of UN General Assembly Meeting

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