Israeli right-wing pushes radical agenda for Trump meet

By Kaamil Ahmed

JERUSALEM (AA) – Since Donald Trump formally took office as U.S. President less than a month ago, Israel has announced some 6,000 settlement homes in the occupied West Bank, making the controversial policy a likely key focus of this week's meeting between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Though the U.N. Security Council late last year condemned the settlements as illegal under international law, the Israeli right-wing has interpreted Trump's initial reticence in criticizing the Israeli policy as an opportunity for a more bullish approach on settlement building and the peace process.

Netanyahu has gone so far as to promote the idea of building the first entirely new settlement in decades while competing members of his fragile coalition have jostled for attention by urging Israel push harder for a radical change in U.S. policy on the region.

During Sunday's long weekly cabinet meeting before he departed for the U.S. on Monday, Netanyahu responded to his challengers from the far-right by suggesting they were not as committed to the national interest as himself, though he did not specify what message he would be delivering to Trump.

"I hear and understand that there is great excitement ahead of this meeting, with all different kinds of motivation behind it, but I have only one motivation: My supreme consideration is to be concerned, first of all, for the security of the State of Israel, to strengthen the steadfast alliance with the U.S., and to strengthen our other national interests," Netanyahu said.

After a tumultuous relationship between Netanyahu and Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, primarily over Israel's ongoing settlement activity, the Israeli right has argued the new administration might be more supportive of breaking the international consensus by abandoning the two-state solution.

Though the Trump administration initially appeared to offer tacit support for Netanyahu's settlement policy, he has recently shown signs of modifying his stance, telling the Netanyahu-linked Israel Hayom newspaper in an interview published Friday: "I am not somebody that believes that going forward with these settlements is a good thing for peace."

Despite Netanyahu calling on his members of his coalition government to refrain from publicly commenting on the future direction of relations between the two countries, tension has grown between his right-wing Likud party and their more radical coalition partner Jewish Home.

While the international community generally opposes settlement building on the grounds it damages the feasibility of a two-state solution, Jewish Home leader and Education Minister Naftali Bennett wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday that even referring to a Palestinian state would be a "historic mistake."

- Trump confusion

Aside from his stance on settlement building, which until recently he had claimed would not damage the peace process, Trump has also backed Israel's opposition to the deal done with Iran to stop it producing nuclear weapons and has indicated he might be willing to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, essentially recognizing Israel's disputed claim that the city is its capital.

But in a series of tweets on Sunday night, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said Netanyahu would have struggled to understand whether Trump still stands by those stances because of the "unpredictability and instability of this administration."

According to Tel Aviv University Social Sciences Professor Ephraim Yaar, Netanyahu's own calculations about Wednesday's meeting may have been impacted by uncertainty about Trump, his rivalry with Bennett and caution over how the international community would react to any radical changes to the status quo, like annexing the West Bank.

"We have to wait and see whether he will be reciprocated in the same way that he hopes and whether he might be disappointed. I think he himself goes with some apprehension, he's not sure because we all know Trump is quite an unpredictable president," Yaar told Anadolu Agency.

"I suspect that Netanyahu somehow suspects that he won't get everything that he wants – maybe much less than he wants," he said.

Ayman Odeh, an Arab lawmaker in Israel's parliament, wrote in the New York Times on Sunday, that the meeting between Netanyahu and Trump underlined a shared ideology of "power through hate and fear."

He claimed the hardline stances taken by Trump during his campaign and in the early days of his presidency reflected Israel's policies for its own Arab citizens and in the Palestinian territories, including a law passed by parliament last week that retroactively legalized 4,000 settler homes in the occupied West Bank.

"A government that bars refugees and Muslims from entering the United States has much in common with one that permits Israeli settlers to steal land from Palestinians, as a new law that Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition pushed through Parliament last week did," Odeh said.