President Trump visits Israel
President Trump visits Israel: President Trump in his first official tour as president is set to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The President flew in from Saudi Arabia which is a key US ally he also gave a speech to Arab and Muslim leaders at the summit. During this trip President Trump will hold talks with both Israeli and Palestinian leaders during the course of his two-day stop.
President Trump had called for an Israel and Palestinian peace agreement to be “the ultimate deal” however the President has been vague about what form the deal should take. The President has said that he prefers to leave it to both sides to decide between them in direct talks.
It has been reported by the Associated Press and Haaretz that President Trumps flight between Saudi Arabia and Israel was likely to be the first between the two countries, Saudi Arabia and Israel have no diplomatic relations.
President Trump has been widely seen as someone who is considerably more supportive of Israel than his predecessor Barack Obama. The President has taken a softer position towards the contentious issue of Israeli settlements. President Trump has suggested that their expansion rather than their presence might hamper the search for peace.
Approximate more than 600,000 Jews live in about 140 settlements built since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This is the land which Palestinians claim for a future state. These settlements have been considered illegal in international law, although Palestine disputes it.
President Trump has also sent a mix set of signals on the issue of Jerusalem. The President had pledged to move the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, however later the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently told a news channel that the President is weighing it up. The move had angered the Palestinians.
Israel has regarded the whole of Jerusalem as its capital; on the other hand Palestinians claim the east as their capital. The international community however does not recognise Israeli sovereignty over the Jerusalem region and countries maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv.
President Trump has a firm belief that he is the world’s greatest dealmaker, and achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians after a century of conflict would be the world’s biggest deal.
During his election campaign, President Trump had expressed views that seemingly fit neatly with those of the right-wing Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu. The President had favoured expansion of the Jewish settlements on occupied territory and had used a tough line towards Palestinian aspirations for independence.
However experts say that it is more than two decades of failed peace talks and that shows how difficult it is to get a deal between Israel and the Palestinians. Regardless of what President says, people on both sides of the argument, seem utterly sceptical about the chances of any progress, no matter what President Trump says or does while he is there.
In Israel there has been some stress in the run up to Mr Trump’s trip after the remarks made by administration officials.
Earlier Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had rejected Mr Tillerson’s suggestion that moving the embassy might cause harm to the peace process. Earlier when a US Consulate official had caused outrage by saying that the Western Wall, one of Judaism’s holiest sites, was “not in your [Israel’s] territory but part of the West Bank“.
Later the White House had to clarify: “The Western Wall is in Jerusalem… such alleged statements would not have been authorised by the White House, [and] do not reflect the US position, and certainly not the president’s position.”
President Trump is expected to visit the Western Wall, located in the Old City of East Jerusalem, in a private capacity on Monday, He will be the first sitting US President to do so.
The President will also visit the nearby Church of the Holy Sepulchre. According to Christian tradition Jesus was buried and resurrected in that church.
The timing of President Trump’s trip also comes days after it was reported that the president had leaked to Russia’s foreign minister classified intelligence information, the leaked information is said to have come from an Israeli source. The incident had raised questions about the confidentiality of secret intelligence passed to the US by its closest Middle Eastern ally.
A huge security operation has been initiated for the visit, during the visit; the president will hold separate meetings with Mr Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem the following day.
Economic and Development concessions for Palestinians, including easing some restrictions on movement and approving industrial construction projects were announced by Israel just a day before President Trump was due to arrive.
President Trump had said at a summit in Riyadh that he believed peace between Israelis and Palestinians was possible.
He also called on Arab and Muslim leaders to take the lead in combating Islamist militants, urging them to “drive them out of this earth“.
President Trump’s eight day trip will also take him to Brussels, the Vatican, and Sicily.
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