- Title: Netanyahu pledges to promote "responsible policies" at Trump meeting
- Date: 12th February 2017
- Summary: MA'ALE ADUMIM SETTLEMENT, WEST BANK (RECENT) (REUTERS) SETTLEMENT OVERLOOKING PALESTINIAN NEIGHBORHOODS OF EAST JERUSALEM WORKER AT SETTLEMENT CONSTRUCTION SITE VARIOUS TRACTOR WORKING MORE OF SETTLEMENT NEIGHBOURHOOD UNDER CONSTRUCTION ARIEL SETTLEMENT, WEST BANK (FEBRUARY 9, 2017) (REUTERS) TOP SHOT OF SETTLEMENT STREET SCENE (SOUNDBITE) (English) ARIEL SETTLEMENT RESIDE
- Embargoed: 26th February 2017 13:08
- Keywords: Israel USA Netanyahu Trump Palestinians Settlements Iran Embassy Jerusalem
- Location: JERUSALEM/NEW YORK, U.S.A./MAALE ADUMIM, ARIEL AND RAMALLAH, WEST BANK/RA'ANANA AND TEL AVIV, ISRAEL/UNKNOWN LOCATION, IRAN
- City: JERUSALEM/NEW YORK, U.S.A./MAALE ADUMIM, ARIEL AND RAMALLAH, WEST BANK/RA'ANANA AND TEL AVIV, ISRAEL/UNKNOWN LOCATION, IRAN
- Country: Israel
- Topics: Diplomacy/Foreign Policy,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA003637RSJR
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE THIS EDIT CONTAINS VIDEO WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday (February 12) he would present "responsible policies" in talks with U.S. President Donald Trump, signalling to the Israeli far-right to curb its territorial demands in the occupied West Bank.
Netanyahu leaves for Washington on Monday (February 13) and will see Trump at the White House on Wednesday (February 15) for their first meeting since the Republican's inauguration last month, with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and policy towards Iran on the agenda.
"This is a very important meeting for Israel's security and for Israel's international position which is getting stronger and for our overall national interests," Netanyahu told his cabinet ministers at the start of a weekly meeting.
He also seemed to urge the far-right to tone down its expectations, saying his primary concern was to promote Israel's security interests and relations with the U.S. which he said required "responsible policies," but did not elaborate.
Netanyahu's comments came after Education Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the ultra-nationalist Jewish Home party, publicly cautioned him not to mention the words "two-state solution" in talks with Trump. Bennett's party is also promoting the annexation of parts of the West Bank.
Netanyahu has stopped short of endorsing those positions - steps that would put Israel at odds with long-standing U.S. and European policies - while speaking of building in major settlement blocs Israel intends to keep in any future peace deal.
Jewish settlers of the West Bank settlement of Ariel, one of those settlement blocs, also raised hopes that Netanyahu will advocate a pro-settlement agenda at the meeting.
"It's a good idea that for the first time the president of the United States actually has a recognition on the settlements," said Assaf Oren, a settler from Ariel.
Hen Ben-Eliyahu, also from Ariel, added that he hoped Netanyahu "let Trump stay as he is -- a supporter of settlements, a supporter of Israel, against the Palestinians, against a Palestinian state."
During his 2016 election campaign, Trump indicated his presidency would be a boon for Israel and tough on Palestinians, after an acrimonious relationship between his predecessor Barack Obama and Netanyahu that included clashes over settlement building and Iran's nuclear programme.
Trump talked of moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, naming an ambassador who backs Israeli settlement on occupied land which Palestinians seek for a state and exerting no pressure on Israel for peace negotiations, which collapsed in 2014.
In recent weeks, Netanyahu approved the construction of some 6,000 settler homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, drawing Palestinian and international condemnation which the Trump administration did not join.
Palestinians have voiced concern over Israel's new moves, even after Trump's administration has toned-down its still pro-Israel bravado.
"This kind of approach trying to bring the U.S. to accept the most extreme, hardline position of Israel, is liable to be disastrous," Hanan Ashrawi, member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) told Reuters.
"It's liable to bring the U.S. to be complicit to Israeli violations of international law and of course Israeli lawlessness," she said, concluding that it destroys "the very foundations of the two state solution and therefore destroying the chances for peace."
But Daniel Shapiro, who recently ended his tenure as U.S. ambassador to Israel under Obama, told Reuters he did not expect as dramatic change in policy as Israel's rightists hope for and as Palestinians fear.
"Already in the first weeks of the Trump administration we've seen some very cautious, very careful statements coming out of the White House, suggesting that U.S. policy has not changed that much," Daniel Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, told Reuters, adding that the two-state solution is likely remain on the agenda.
"Campaign promises get reshaped into something less dramatic once the reality of governing hits," Shapiro said.
Shapiro also referred to the Iranian nuclear deal, an issue which is expected to dominate the talks.
Netanyahu and Trump, seizing on an Iranian missile test, are nearing common ground on a tougher U.S. policy towards Tehran ahead of their meeting.
But people familiar with the Trump administration's thinking say that its evolving strategy is likely to be aimed not at dismantling Iran's July 2015 nuclear deal with six world powers, as presidential candidate Trump sometimes advocated, but tightening its enforcement and pressuring the Islamic Republic into renegotiating key provisions.
In a shift of position for Netanyahu, all signs point to him being on board with the emerging U.S. game plan. Two years ago, he condemned an emerging Iran pact as a "historic mistake" and strained relations with the Obama administration by addressing the U.S. Congress to rally opposition against it.
A recent Iranian missile firing provided the new Republican president and the conservative Israeli leader with an early opportunity to show they were on the same page in seeking to rein in Iranian military.
"I think President Trump also wants to demonstrate a new and tougher range of options to be used against Iran in regards to its sponsorship of terrorism, its shipment of weapons to proxies around the region in support of the Assad regime and its ballistic missiles programme. But I don't think he's prepared at this point to scrap the nuclear deal which is doing exactly what it was supposed to do: Just keeping Iranian nuclear program at bay with great visibility and every option still available to the United States and others if Iran were later to try to break out for nuclear weapon," Shapiro said.
Beyond new sanctions and sharpened rhetoric, analysts said it was unclear how far Trump might be willing to go, especially given the risk of military escalation in the oil-rich Gulf and strong European support for the existing nuclear deal.
Part of Trump's approach, as signalled in his tweets as well as vague threats by top aides, appears to be aimed at keeping Iranian leaders off-balance.
But the administration, one source said, is counting on the Europeans to eventually get on board because their companies might balk at major deals in Iran out of fear that new U.S. "secondary sanctions" would penalize them as well. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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