Spicer made his remarks as a report in the Jerusalem Post on Thursday evening claimed that “for the first time, the administration confirmed that Trump is committed to a comprehensive two-state solution to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict negotiated between the parties”.
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Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to be in Washington on 15 February for what will now be a closely watched meeting for any signs of tension with Trump.
“Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have chose to authorise the construction of 3,000 new housing units in Judea-Samaria”, the defence ministry said in a statement on Tuesday, using the term Israel uses for the West Bank, a Palestinian territory it has occupied since 1967.
The outpost at Amona is being dismantled following a court order.
Oded Revivi, the chief foreign envoy of the Yesha settlers’ council, said his group “thanks the White House for asserting that our communities were never an impediment to peace”. “Therefore, the conclusion is that more building is not the problem”. In order to follow the former administration’s strategy, Trump demanded Russian Federation to withdrew his hand from the Crimean Peninsula and also demanded to frightened the Iran on the name of threatened penalty for disobeying a law or rule for missile tests and experiments.
The fate of Amona has threatened to destabilize Netanyahu’s narrow coalition that includes the pro-settler party Jewish Home and other hardliners.
It comes days after the government approved an additional 2,500 homes in the West Bank and hundreds more in east Jerusalem.
Settlements in both the West Bank and east Jerusalem are viewed as illegal and major stumbling blocks to peace by the global community, as they are built on land the Palestinians want for their own state.
“After eight years of withstanding huge pressures on a large array of topics, first and foremost Iran and the settlements, I definitely welcome the change of attitude”, the Israeli prime minister says.
Under intense global scrutiny because of its illegality, Israel has only carried out its settlement expansion around existing settlements rather than establishing new ones.
But there was no immediate violence as columns of unarmed police walked toward prefabricated homes where some 330 settlers live. Israeli troops and settlers withdrew from Gaza in 2005. He added in the post, “Should have been thankful for the bad deal the USA made with them!”
On Thursday, Israeli police cleared protesters from an unauthorised settler outpost in the occupied West Bank.
For decades, USA presidents have joined the worldwide community in condemning the settlements.
Israel was outraged when the U.S. abstained from vetoing a UN Security Council resolution which called for a halt to the construction of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. In reaction, Trump promised “things will be different”.
“Instead of the green light during the campaign and Obama’s red light, Trump is now flashing a blinking yellow light”.
Since Trump’s January 20 inauguration, meanwhile, Netanyahu announced plans to build 6,000 new homes in already existing settlements.
The Amona issue had caused tension within Netanyahu’s coalition government.
The Jerusalem Post today ran a story familiar to the Netanyahu disagreements with the last White House: a senior administration official told the paper that new settlements were announced without Washington consultation and were “undermining” Trump’s effort to forge a two-state solution.
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Netanyahu is set to meet Theresa May in Downing Street before flying on to the USA to meet president Donald Trump. This excludes construction WITHIN existing settlements – which means the Trump administration does not seem to have any issue with the building of more houses, or an expansion to existing houses, in existing settlements within their current borders.
