TEL AVIV — The Trump administration will support Israel very differently from the Obama administration and not force peace, a senior advisor to President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday.
“I think he’s going to support Israel in a way it hasn’t been supported in the Obama administration,” Jason Dov Greenblatt told The Times of Israel.
“I think he’s going to try to help the Israelis achieve peace with the Palestinians. He’ll be there to guide them and not force peace upon them,” he said.
Trump would only seek a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if the two sides show willingness, Greenblatt said.
“He will make it a priority if the Israelis and Palestinians want to make it a priority,” he said. “He’s not going to force peace upon them, it will have to come from them.”
David Friedman, another of Trump’s advisers on Israel, told The Times of Israel that the president-elect was willing to examine all potential resolutions to the conflict and not just the two-state solution.
“A two-state solution is not a priority,” said Friedman. “I don’t think he is wed to any particular outcome. A two-state solution is a way, but it’s not the only way.”
Following Trump’s win, rightwing members of Knesset called on Netanyahu to renew construction in the West Bank settlements. Other politicians called on him to come through on his promise to recognize Israel as the undivided capital of Israel and move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
On Wednesday, Education Minister Naftali Bennett said that Trump’s election meant the idea of a Palestinian state was finished.
“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,” Bennett said. “This is the position of the president-elect … The era of a Palestinian state is over.”
Greenblatt said that Trump’s election victory did not come as a surprise to him.
“I have known Donald for 20 years,” he said. “When he sets his heart and mind to something, he wins.”
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