Sachs Ron/CNP/ABACA ABACA/PA Images. All rights reserved.How do we assess current US policy towards Israel and its conflict with Palestine? First of all, with a personality so volatile, erratic and unpredictable, it is hazardous to make predictions. What we have seen is a mix of hard-line attitudes followed by a slight softening, followed by more hard-line proclamations during the visit with Netanyahu. Both the substance and tone of Trump’s remarks on Wednesday left some wondering whether he was just saying whatever came into his head on the Israeli problematic, or whether it represented some expert discussion and reflection on the part of the administration. Conforming to his usual public speaking style, he contradicted and backtracked and then, offering no specifics, like a salesman for cure-all potions, he cheer-led his certainty that a solution would be had – a deal would be made.
The signals are clearly mixed up to now. For some time, Trump has appeared as a tough defender of Netanyahu and his campaign against Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The US president then nominated the pro-Israeli hardliner David Friedman, as ambassador to Israel. Friedman is a fervent supporter and financial backer of Israeli settlement expansion, close to the right-wing of Likud and other extremist parties in Israel, has called Obama and his administration “blatantly anti-Semitic” and compared his progressive Jewish critics (at the pro-peace J Street in Washington, for example) to “Kapos” (Nazi collaborators). He opposes a two-state solution to the Palestinian question and both he and Trump have advocated moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. At this time that plan is not moving forward.
As a presidential candidate, Trump threatened to annul the nuclear deal with Iran signed by Obama; yet Trump’s advisers told Federica Mogherini, European Union’s top foreign policy official, that Washington would fully comply with the agreement. Then, at his press conference with Netanyahu, Trump seemed to reprise his tough line: “One of the worst deals I've ever seen is the Iran deal. My administration has already imposed new sanctions on Iran, and I will do more to prevent Iran from ever developing – I mean EVER – a nuclear weapon.”
