While Mr Trump was not far from traditional U.S. policy, his blunt language rattled some in Israel.
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WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday he hoped the United States would continue to reject any move towards a U.N. Security Council resolution backing Palestinian statehood.
“Unlike some presidential candidates, I do not believe the USA can be neutral if Israel is to survive”, Menendez said.
“I came here to speak to you about where I stand on the future of American relations with our strategic ally, our unbreakable friendship, and our cultural brother, the only democracy in the Middle East, the State of Israel”, Trump told a crowd of 18,000 who packed the Verizon Center in Washington, for AIPAC’s convention.
“Tonight, you will get a glimpse of a potential USA foreign policy that would insult our allies, not engage with them and embolden our adversaries, not defeat them”, she said, referring to Trump’s AIPAC speech scheduled for Monday night.
Trump has stressed in the past he wanted to be a neutral broker between Israel and Palestinians and not take “sides” when it came to peace talks.
Israel’s security, she proclaimed, “is non-negotiable”.
The billionaire businessman, addressing the annual gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington, D.C., Monday evening, called President Barack Obama “maybe the worst thing that ever happened to Israel”. He touched on the FBI investigation of her mishandling of sensitive email during her four years at the State Department and the so-called Whitewater real estate business scandal that marred Bill Clinton’s governorship of Arkansas decades ago. It should end. It should end.
Trump scored applause for telling the audience the “No. 1 priority is to dismantle the disastrous [nuclear arms] deal with Iran”, but moments later he said he would “enforce it like you’ve never seen it enforced before”.
“Let me be very, very clear”, Cruz said.
All the US presidential candidates except for Bernie Sanders spoke to the conference on Monday, saying they would try to renew peace efforts, while pledging special support for Israel. The agreement, finalized last July, has faced stiff opposition from the Israeli government and many in the USA, including Republican front-runner Donald Trump. He said that unlike his competitors, “I won’t need on-the-job training”.
Netanyahu said peace is achievable only through direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, and he laid out the basic parameters: “The best formula for achieving peace remains two states for two peoples, in which a demilitarized Palestinian state finally recognizes the Jewish state”.
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AIPAC took a lot of heat for inviting a candidate who has built a campaign on racism, bigotry, xenophobia, and unrestrained anger.
