Support in Israel for Trump’s policy shift
ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right political allies yesterday hailed a shift in US support for a Palestinian state and shrugged off a call by President Donald Trump to curb Israeli settlements on occupied land.
In his first face-to-face meeting with Netanyahu as president, Trump on Wednesday dropped a US commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the longstanding bedrock of Washington’s Middle East policy.
The Republican president said he would accept whatever peace solution the Israelis or Palestinians chose, whether it entailed two states or one.
The ultra-nationalist Jewish Home party in Netanyahu’s coalition claimed some of the credit for the shift.
“What we did . . . definitely helped change the picture,” Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, of Jewish Home, said on Army Radio, referring to its pressure on Netanyahu before his trip.
Party leader Naftali Bennett, an advocate of annexing parts of the occupied West Bank the Palestinians want in any future state, was equally upbeat in comments on Facebook.
“The Palestinian flag has been lowered and replaced by the Israeli flag,” Bennett, who is battling Netanyahu for right-wing voters but whose party is crucial for the cohesion of the governing coalition, said.
Before Netanyahu’s trip, Bennett had said on Facebook “the earth will shake” if the prime minister used the words “two states” or “Palestine” in Washington. And he did not.
Netanyahu, who first conditionally backed Palestinian statehood in 2009, did not explicitly rule out a homeland for the Palestinians during his talks with Trump, but he meticulously avoided using the term “two-state” in his remarks.
By contrast, Palestinians voiced alarm at the change in US tone.
In a statement, President Mahmoud Abbas reiterated his commitment to a two-state solution and demanded a halt to settlement expansion.
In the radio interview, Shaked played down Trump’s surprise call on Netanyahu to “hold back on settlements for a bit”, suggesting it was not a precise demand for a total freeze.