US ambassador to Israel called to Washington to prepare Trump's peace plan

The US ambassador to Israel has been called back to Washington for "urgent discussions" with White House officials on the Trump administration's Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, Israel Hayom reported.

David Friedman will meet with State Department and White House officials to help prepare Trump's long-awaited peace proposal for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Israeli daily said.

The US ambassador was forced to cancel his attendance at the American Jewish Congress' Global Forum in Jerusalem on Sunday after being called back to the US.

Friedman was US President Donald Trump's personal lawyer before being tapped for the position of ambassador. He was a controversial hire because of his support for Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Trump vowed to broker the "deal of the century" to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after entering the White House. 

Throughout American diplomatic efforts, however, Palestinian officials have expressed impatience with Trump's Middle East envoys, saying they received no clear vision from the US on the direction or substance of talks.

Some Palestinian officials even accused Kushner's team of sounding like "Netanyahu's advisers".

Trump broke with decades of US policy last year by recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital and later moving the country's embassy from Tel Aviv to the contested city.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the United States had disqualified itself as a mediator in the conflict, vowing to no longer accept it has a role in the peace process.