Trump Adviser: Israeli Settlement Building Not an Impediment to Peace Jason Greenblatt told Israeli radio the president-elect doesn’t see the settlement activity as problematic By Felicia Schwartz
http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-adviser-israeli-settlement-building-not-an-impediment-to-peace-1478812976
A top policy adviser to Donald Trump during his campaign said the president-elect doesn’t view Israeli settlements built in disputed areas as an obstacle to peace, a position sharply at odds with Obama administration policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Obama administration opposes Israel’s settlement building, and has ramped up criticism from previous administrations—both Republican and Democratic—of the activity.
Jason Greenblatt, who Mr. Trump named co-chair of an Israel policy committee during his campaign in July, on Thursday played down any risk from the building activity to peace prospects.
“Mr. Trump does not view the settlements as being an obstacle for peace,” Mr. Greenblatt told Israel’s Army Radio. “The two sides are going to have to decide how to deal with that region, but it’s certainly not Mr. Trump’s view that settlement activity should be condemned and that it is an obstacle to peace. It is not the obstacle to peace.”
Mr. Greenblatt is an executive vice president and chief legal officer of the Trump Organization. He said he would be honored to serve in a Trump administration and work on issues including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but that it was too early to say whether he would.
President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and other U.S. officials have said Israel’s construction of settlements is hindering the possibilities to reach a peace deal providing for side-by-side Jewish and Palestinian states, a U.S. goal since the 1980s.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday that Mr. Greenblatt’s comments contradict years of bipartisan U.S. policy.
“Trying to change facts on the ground only puts a negotiated settlement, a resolution of differences between the two parties, further away,” Mr. Earnest said at a press briefing. “So, the president views that kind of continued settlement expansion as counterproductive.”
Conservative Israeli lawmakers and Jewish settlers have welcomed the election of Mr. Trump as president, hoping he will move away from the decadeslong U.S. policy pursuing a two-state solution.
Mr. Trump in the past has been quoted approving of the Israeli settlements. On the campaign trail, he has promised to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The U.S. doesn’t recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as it awaits a two-state solution.
Aaron David Miller, a former adviser to Republican and Democratic secretaries of State, said Mr. Greenblatt’s comments suggest that the Trump administration is unlikely to raise the issue of settlement building with Israel as a potential problem. Mr. Trump has made contradictory statements that make it hard to predict what he might do, Mr. Miller said. CONTINUE AT SITE
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