Describing Israel as ready to negotiate a peace agreement, Trump said the Palestinians would have to be willing to accept that Israel will forever exist as a Jewish state and be able to stop attacks on Israelis.
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“If I am fortunate enough to be elected president”, she promised, “… we will never allow Israel’s adversaries to think a wedge can be driven between us.
This year is no different.
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump traded verbal shots with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as both candidates have rolled out their strategies to protect Israel (video below). He pledged to relocate the American embassy to the “eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem”.
Cruz also took aim at the Iran deal, saying, “I will rip this catastrophic Iranian deal to shreds”.
“We need steady hands”, Clinton told AIPAC, referring to the real estate mogul but not naming him. “But to be successful, we have also got to be a friend not only to Israel, but to the Palestinian people, where in Gaza unemployment today is 44 percent and we have there a poverty rate which is nearly as high”.
Mr Sanders, who has been criticised for not asserting his own Jewish identity more strongly, declined an invitation to the conference.
Hours later, when it was Donald Trump’s turn, he suprised the skeptical crowd by carefully following his prepared script. Trump was known for his eschewed scripts and raucious rallies.
Trump’s critics have said he could harm long-standing USA support for Israel.
In fact, since the Ukraine crisis erupted more than two years ago, the Obama administration has refused to provide the new, pro-Western government in Kiev offensive military equipment to use against Russian-backed separatists.
“We need steady hands and not a president who says he’s neutral on Monday, pro-Israel on Tuesday and who-knows-what on Wednesday because everything’s negotiable”, she told the AIPAC in Washington.
Others pointed out that while the speech might have gone down well with the AIPAC crowd – a group generally to the right of the spectrum – it would alienate Israelis and American Jews on the political left. Mr. Trump sought to clear the air by declaring himself as the most pro-Israel candidate in the race, but his repeated reference to Palestine didn’t help. There, his off-the-cuff remarks, jokes, Trump said, weren’t well received. “It’s not a friend even to the United States of America, where as you know, it has it’s home and it surely is not a friend to Israel”, warned Trump.
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While Clinton attended AIPAC, her rival Bernie Sanders did not, citing schedule conflicts. She said she support the deal, but that Iran is not to be trusted, language guaranteed to resonate with a group that’s been largely critical of any normalization with the Islamic Republic.
