Out of all absurd things Donald Trump has done over his mandate so far, this has been the most unforeseeable. Deviating completely from his predictable agenda, Trump has recently released a statement opposing the expansion of existing settlements or the construction of new ones in Palestinian territory. It reads:
“The American desire for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians has remained unchanged for 50 years. While we don’t believe the existence of settlements is an impediment to peace, the construction of new settlements or the expansion of existing settlements beyond their current borders may not be helpful in achieving that goal. (…)”
Apparently, it was a response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly surprising the White House by announcing the construction of 5,500 new housing units in the West Bank last week. Nonetheless, the statement confused the global community considering Trump’s critics of the approval of Resolution 2334 by the United Nations Security Council, which indicated the lack of legal validity of Israeli settlements in Palestine, constituting a violation under international law. On December 24th, the day after the resolution passed, Trump tweeted:
The big loss yesterday for Israel in the United Nations will make it much harder to negotiate peace.Too bad, but we will get it done anyway!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 24, 2016
Ahead of the vote, the Israel Government reached out to the former President-elect to help pressure the Obama administration to veto the resolution. After appealing to the White House, with no success, an Israeli official stated that Israel “implored the White House not to go ahead and told them that if they did, we would have no choice but to reach out to President-elect Trump.” The Trump-Netanyahu alliance didn’t fulfill Israeli expectations as the resolution passed with 14-0 votes and a U.S. abstention, but it set predictions for a change in U.S.-Israel relations over Trump’s mandate.
As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2016
As stated by CNN’s Stephen Collinson on Trump endorsing the Israeli Prime-Minister, “Trump (…) has clearly stated his intention to engineer a sharp shift in US policy toward Israel, aligning his administration closer to Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud-led coalition.”
This most recent statement by the White House goes against the general expectation concerning future U.S.-Israel relations, and Palestinian leaders demonstrated mixed responses. Palestinian official Muhammed Shtayyeh reacted positively, claiming it is “a small step in the right direction,” adding he would like to see the Trump administration take “a clear position on the two-state solution and settlements.”
Hazem Qassim, a Hamas (Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist organization) spokesman, declared his disapproval of the statement in a press release on Saturday night: “The White House’s statement, that views settlement construction as not representing the real problem, provides cover for Israeli settlement construction on Palestinian land.”
Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, told The Jerusalem Post that the White House statement was “too weak.” “I do not think it is is appropriate to say that settlements generally are not an obstacle to peace, and that some expansion could be an obstacle to peace,” stated the chairman of the Palestinian National Initiative.
At this critical moment in Israel-Palestine history, it is undeniable that Trump’s erratic conduct towards Israel suggests murky waters ahead for the global community. Nonetheless, the optimistic hope that Trump will contribute towards appeasing this centennial conflict that, to this day, results in the deaths of thousands of innocent Palestinians, although it is highly unlikely he will make any sort of substantial move.
