Israel’s Lawmakers Hope Donald Trump Will Reject Two-State Solution The U.S. president elect had encouraged Israeli settlers to continue building in the West Bank By Rory Jones
http://www.wsj.com/articles/israels-lawmakers-hope-donald-trump-will-reject-two-state-solution-1478691219
TEL AVIV—Israel’s conservative lawmakers and Jewish settlers on Wednesday welcomed Donald Trump’s victory, in the hope that the president-elect will break from decadeslong U.S. policy and shelve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In his public statements, Mr. Trump had encouraged Israeli settlers to continue building in the West Bank on land Palestinians claim for a future state. He had promised to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, effectively recognizing the holy city as Israel’s capital. And he had questioned U.S. financial support to the Palestinian Authority, the body that governs the Palestinian territories.
“Trump’s victory is an opportunity for Israel to immediately retract the notion of a Palestinian state in the center of the country, which would hurt our security and just cause,” said Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home party that sits in Israel’s governing coalition and advocates for annexation of the West Bank.
Yehuda Glick, another member of parliament for the ruling Likud Party, invited the president-elect to visit Israel to “see with his own eyes that settlements are the way to peace,” referring to Jewish enclaves currently located alongside Palestinian cities in the West Bank.
The U.S. has repeatedly condemned Israeli construction in the West Bank and refused to accede to Israeli claim over Jerusalem as its capital. Palestinians also want to establish the holy city as capital of their own future state.
Since the Oslo peace accords of the 1990s, the U.S. has consistently advocated for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on borders captured by Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
President Barack Obama’s policies on these issues haven’t differed significantly to previous White House administrations. But the U.S. leader has been increasingly at odds with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over construction of settlements.
Israel this year has accelerated settlement building and many members of the government live in the West Bank and advocate a full annexation of the land.
Commenting on Mr. Trump’s victory, Mr. Netanyahu said the “President-elect is a true friend of the State of Israel, and I look forward to working with him to advance security, stability and peace in our region. The ironclad bond between the United States and Israel is rooted in shared values, buttressed by shared interests and driven by a shared destiny.”
In a statement, Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which represents Palestinian political factions in peace negotiations, said a two-state solution had been in the national interest of the U.S. for decades.
“Security, peace and stability in this region will come only after defeating the Israeli occupation that started in 1967,” he said in a statement on state news agency Wafa. “And the establishment of the independent state of Palestine on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital to live in peace and security alongside the state of Israel.”
While Mr. Trump has received strong support from settlers and more conservative Israelis, the majority of Israelis preferred Mrs. Clinton in polls in the run up to the election. Mr. Trump’s campaign was criticized for being anti-Semitic in the U.S. But an exit poll of Israeli-American voting put Mr. Trump with 49% of the vote to 44% for Ms Clinton, according the organization iVoteIsrael and Keevoon Global Research.
“I’m in another universe,” said Marc Zell, co-chair of lobby group Republican Overseas Israel who lives in an Israeli settlement inside the West Bank. “It’s beyond my wildest expectations.”
Former foreign minister and member of Israel’s opposition, Tzipi Livni congratulated Mr. Trump on Twitter but also said she hopes he delivers the promises of his conciliatory acceptance speech, “not the campaign.”
At the start of his run, Mr. Trump suggested that the burden of making peace between Israelis and Palestinians rested largely on Israel, but reversed the position during a speech in Washington to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most influential pro-Israel lobbying group in the U.S. CONTINUE AT SITE
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