FOREIGN POLICY/ISRAEL/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s mantra, throughout his career, has been never to give an inch without getting an inch in return.
But last week he announced that Israel would voluntarily impose some limits on future construction in the West Bank — and, according to Israeli news reports, he cited as the reason the imperative of getting along with President Donald Trump.
Pressure to slow settlement growth was not what some on the Israeli right anticipated under Trump. ‘The era of the Palestinian state is over,’ declared Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu’s hard-right education minister, after the Nov. 8 election.
Instead, Trump has taken a surprisingly nuanced approach when it comes to the Middle East: The same administration that threatened members of Congress who didn’t support the doomed health care bill, in this case, is reaching out to both sides and appears to be making a serious effort at brokering Trump’s ‘ultimate deal’ — peace in the Middle East. Many are still skeptical that he can achieve a deal that has bedeviled ambitious American presidents for decades.”
-Anne Karni, “Trump’s surprisingly conventional Israel policy,” Politico, April 5, 2017