Arutz Sheva spoke with former US Ambassador and Special Assistant to President Obama, Dennis Ross at the IDC Herzliya Conference.
"The Trump Administration made a decision from the very beginning to embrace Israel and to make that a public embrace," Ambassador Ross said. "And that's different from how the Obama Administration began."
According to Ross, forging a strong connection with Israel early on was a smart move because it makes it easier to ask concessions of Israel later on.
"The question will become...as they proceed to try to do something on the peace issue, and they talk about the ultimate deal, will that begin to create some friction?
Ambassador Ross stated the he personally "does not believe that the ultimate deal is available anytime soon".
"I think it is possible to break the stalemate, to restore a sense of possibility, to change some of the realities on the ground. That I think is possible. But even to do that will require hard decisions in Israel and hard decisions on the Palestinian side.
"There is a huge psychological gap between Israelis and Palestinians, wider than I can recall.
Amb. Ross said to Arutz Sheva that the differences between the sides on core issues remain, but the real problem is that any deal reached with the PA couldn't be implemented "because no one has an answer for Gaza. Israel's not going to go in and replace Hamas in Gaza. Egypt's not going to go in and replace Hamas in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority can't do it."
Regarding the embassy move question - Ross believes that President Trump will eventually move the US embassy to Jerusalem.