Al Khalifa defended his country’s decision to host a White House-engineered summit to address the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, saying Bahrain’s only objective is to support the “brotherly Palestinian people”. He tweeted Tuesday, May 21, 2019, that it also respects the Palestinian leadership’s steadfast position safeguarding Palestinian rights. A senior Palestinian official has likened the White House plan to “financial blackmail “. His comments highlight the uneasy balance some Gulf Arab leaders are attempting to strike as their once quiet ties with Israel grow tighter and more public in the face of shared enemy Iran. The conference, running June 25-26 in Bahrain, will not address the most contentious parts of the conflict: borders, the status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and Israel’s security.

Source: Washington Post May 21, 2019 11:25 UTC