Thread: Trump warns Israel that settlements 'complicate' peace hopes

Trump warns Israel that settlements 'complicate' peace hopes

2 hours ago

US President Donald Trump has said Israeli settlements "complicate" the peace process with Palestinians and urged "care" over the issue.

He also told an Israeli newspaper that he did not believe the Palestinians, and possibly Israel as well, were ready to make peace.

President Trump angered Palestinians in December when he recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

He also threatened to withhold aid unless Palestinians agreed to talks.

The US leader's latest comments came in an interview published on Sunday with the conservative newspaper Yisrael Hayom.

Asked by editor-in-chief Boaz Bismouth when the US would present its peace plan, Mr Trump said: "We will see what happens. Right now the Palestinians are not into making peace, they are just not into it. Regarding Israel, I am not certain it, too, is interested in making peace so we will just need to wait and see what happens."

Asked whether Israeli settlements would form part of the peace plan, he said: "We will be talking about settlements. The settlements are something that very much complicates and always have complicated making peace, so I think Israel has to be very careful with the settlements."

More than 600,000 Jews live in about 140 settlements built since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.

In excerpts of the interview published on Friday, Mr Trump said that recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital had been a highlight of his first year in office.

"I think Jerusalem was a very big point and I think it was a very important point," he said.

"The capital, having Jerusalem be your great capital, was a very important thing to a lot of people. It was a very important pledge that I made and I fulfilled my pledge," he said.

Israel claims the whole of the city as its capital but the Palestinians want East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, to be the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said he will no longer accept the US as a mediator following the controversial recognition of Jerusalem.

Last month the UN expressed concern at a US decision to withhold more than half of a tranche of funding for an agency that supports Palestinian refugees.

Washington said it would hand over $60m (£43m) of a planned payment to the UN Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), but would keep back $65m until it carries out "reforms".

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43025705

Trump: Neither Israelis nor Palestinians looking to make peace

By Jennifer Hansler, CNN
Updated 1:27 PM ET, Sun February 11, 2018

(CNN) US President Donald Trump declined to give a timeline for releasing the US plan for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, telling an Israeli newspaper that he is not convinced that either party is committed to the process.

"We are going to see what goes on," Trump told "Israel Hayom" in an interview released Sunday.

"Right now, I would say the Palestinians are not looking to make peace, they are not looking to make peace. And I am not necessarily sure that Israel is looking to make peace," the President said. "So we are just going to have to see what happens."

The United States' role as a broker in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has come under fire following the Trump administration's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in December, upending seven decades of US foreign policy. Top Palestinian officials condemned the move, saying it disqualified the US from playing the role of arbiter. The United Nations voted overwhelmingly to condemn the decision.

Trump was also asked about his comments at the World Economic Forum in Davos that "Jerusalem is off the table" in terms of negotiations. In his answer, he seemed to qualify his earlier remarks.

"I wanted to make it clear that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel," he told the newspaper. "As for specific boundaries, I would support what both sides agreed to."

"I think both sides will have to make hard compromises to reach a peace agreement," Trump added.

Asked about the issue of settlements, Trump called them "something that very much complicates and always have complicated making peace." The statement appears to reflect a tougher stance than the one heard in recent months from the administration, resembling far more the position of previous administrations, which tended to describe settlements as an "obstacle to peace."

"Israel Hayom" newspaper is owned by prominent Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, and is widely seen as being strongly supportive of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

CNN's Andrew Carey and Oren Liebermann contributed to this report.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/11/polit...iew/index.html

Cut off aid to both sides. We give Israel 8 BILLION a year!

What for! It is OUR money, we need it to build the wall and defend our border.

I do not want to give Israel 8 BILLION a year for the next 50 years!



SIT DOWN, MAKE PEACE, DESTROY YOUR WEAPONS AND GET ON WITH LIFE!

NO MORE U.S. TAXPAYER MONEY...I DO NOT GIVE A CRAP ABOUT ANY OF THESE PEOPLE! AND THEY DO NOT GIVE A CRAP ABOUT US...JUST HAVE THEIR GRUBBY PAWS OUT FOR OUR MONEY!

WE ARE 21 TRILLION IN DEBT...TAKE CARE OF YOUR OWN DAMN SELVES!

OUR ATM MACHINE IS BROKEN...OUT OF ORDER...WE ARE SICK OF YOUR WARS!

AND KEEP YOUR PEOPLE ON YOUR SOIL...WE DO NOT WANT THEM EITHER!

And end dual citizenship. If you vote in another country's election, YOU CAN NOT VOTE IN OURS. Period.