Trump administration abandons peace push as Israel kills dozens in border struggle with Hamas, Palestinians

REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Senior White House Adviser Ivanka Trump (L) stands next to the dedication plaque at the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, and (R) a wounded Palestinian demonstrator is evacuated as others take cover from Israeli fire and tear gas during a protest at the Israel-Gaza border in the southern Gaza Strip, May 14, 2018.

• Israeli forces and Palestinians have been clashing in increasingly deadly protests along the border in Gaza while President Donald Trump's administration has totally failed to promote peace.
• The clashes have been going on since March 30, but on Monday took a deadly turn when 58 were killed and thousands wounded.
• Trump's family and senior advisers visited Jerusalem to open an interim US embassy there on Monday, but avoided spreading a message that both Israel and Palestinians could celebrate.

Israeli forces and Palestinians, some allegedly members of the terror organization Hamas, are set for massive clashes on Tuesday after months of protesting have culminated in dozens of deaths and drawn airstrikes from Israel's air force.

On Monday, Israeli forces killed 58 Palestinian protestors and injured around 2,700 with live gunfire, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

On Tuesday, Israel said its jets bombed Hamas targets in the Gaza strip, killing 11, while tanks targeted another two posts, according to Israel's military.

Tuesday marks the final day of the protests that kicked off on March 30 called the "March of the Return." While the protest's organizers maintain it's a nonviolent demonstration, protesters have attempted to breach Israel's borders with bombs and flaming kites intended to spark fires on the Israeli side.

Israel maintains that Hamas moves among the protesters and has made violent attempts to enter Israel, and has posted videos of such incidents. Hamas avowedly seeks the destruction of Israel and speaks of "the Return" as the removal of Jewish people in the region, and their replacement with Palestinians, something which Israel won't seriously entertain.

Trump's peace push looking like an afterthought

Kobi Gideon/GPO via Getty Images

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with US President Donald Trump prior to the President's departure from Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv on May 23, 2017 in Jerusalem, Israel.

With such a bitter and deep divide between the sides in the ongoing conflict, leadership from President Donald Trump's administration has been notably absent.

While Trump's daughter and son-in-law attended the opening of an interim US embassy in Jerusalem on Monday, the most violent day of protesting yet, they delivered a message that spoke only to the Israeli side.

Senior White House Adviser Jared Kushner spoke of Jerusalem being Israel's capital, but failed to mention that the eastern part of the divided city belonged to Palestinians, and could one day be its capital. Most serious maps drawn up for a two-state solution to the crisis call for such borders and capitals.

Instead, the Trump administration took no steps to assuage Palestinian fears that Israel seeks to continue to colonize and push its people away from the holy city.

Now, Israel says Hamas uses those fears to stoke protests, which it meets with lethal force.

The Isreal Policy Forum statement called Monday's embassy opening a "missed opportunity to affirm that American policy remains that Jerusalem will eventually be a shared capital of both Israel and a future Palestinian state."

"Doing so would demonstrate the US commitment to a two-state solution and turn today from solely an Israeli celebration into one that can be shared by both sides," the statement continued.

While France and the UK called for Israel to restrain itself in protecting its borders, Trump's White House called for no such restraint, and blamed Hamas, not Israel, for the killings.

Trump promised during his campaign to push hard for peace between Israel and Palestinians, and appointed Kushner to handle the tricky issue, but so far has cut funding to the Palestinians more legitimate government, the Palestinian Authority, and solidly supported Israel's use of force even in light of mounting deaths along the border.

"It's ludicrous to think Jared was ever going to bring peace to Israel/Palestine," Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group wrote on the news app Newspicks. "Trump said it well - walls work, and nowhere do they work better than in Israel. As long as you're not Palestinian, that's not a problem."