Netanyahu rejected a regional peace initiative this time last year

(Image credit: Dan Balilty/Getty Images)

last updated 20 February 2017

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secretly met with Jordan's King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in 2016 to consider a regional peace initiative negotiated by then-Secretary of State John Kerry, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Sunday. The covert talks took place in Jordan last February, and terms of the agreement Netanyahu would ultimately reject included renewed peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leadership as well as Arab nations' recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

Netanyahu confirmed Sunday that the meeting took place and said in a gathering of Likud ministers that it occurred at his initiation. He did not accept the conditions Kerry proposed because he did not believe he could win approval from his coalition government.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.