Netanyahu to put US policy to test
Israeli premier to seek support for relocation of US embassy and colony building during talks with Trump
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who warmly welcomed Donald Trump’s election as US president, will visit the White House tomorrow to test his supportive campaign pledges against emerging policy.
Since taking office, Trump has edged away from unqualified backing for Netanyahu’s drive for more Jewish colonisation in territory the Palestinians claim for a state, and also from a pledge to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem.
Observers say the embassy relocation promise would likely not be fulfilled but Netanyahu will likely test his wiggling room on colonies.
The prospect of a Trump rethink challenges the hopes of the colonist lobby, a driving force in Netanyahu’s rightwing coalition government, and others on the Israeli right who want to see at least partial annexation of the occupied West Bank.
In an interview published on Friday in the pro-Netanyahu daily Israel Hayom, Trump said colony growth was not “good for peace”.
Netanyahu has announced more than 5,000 colony homes since Trump’s January 20 inauguration, as well as the first new colony for more than 20 years. Around 600,000 Israelis currently live in colonies in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, communities considered illegal by the United Nations and most world powers.
“For (the past) three weeks Donald Trump has been speaking differently,” said Michael Oren, deputy minister in charge of diplomacy in Netanyahu’s office.
Placating Bennet
Netanyahu himself said at Sunday’s weekly cabinet meeting that strengthening Israel’s ties with its historic ally “requires a responsible and considered policy, and that is how I intend to act”.
“I have navigated IsraeliUS relations in a prudent manner and I will continue to do so now,” he told ministers and media.
His comments may have been aimed at education minister and staunch colony backer Naftali Bennett, of the far-right Jewish Home party.
On Sunday, Bennett urged Netanyahu “not to miss a historic opportunity” provided by Trump’s election and to drop his declared support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Netanyahu, please make it clear to Trump in our name: There will not be a Palestinian state in the heart of our land,” he wrote on Twitter. “It will not happen.”
Such ministerial statements ahead of the White House meeting “can only sabotage our relationship with Donald Trump”, said a senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Oren said Netanyahu should not discard the two-state option, which envisions a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
“Benjamin Netanyahu must present the two-state solution as a vision, and sketch pending possible interim agreements acceptable to the Palestinians,” he said.
Netanyahu will expect to find a friendly ear on the subject of Israel’s arch-foe Iran.
“Iran seeks to annihilate Israel, it says so openly, it seeks to conquer the Middle East, it threatens Europe, it threatens the West, it threatens the world,” he said last week at a meeting in London with British Prime Minister Theresa May. He bitterly opposed former president Barack Obama’s backing of a 2015 deal between Tehran and the major powers.