Tel-Chai Nation

The prime minister's told about what he's said to Donald Trump in their discussions together:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had made clear to President Donald Trump that he is not prepared to evacuate “a single person” from any West Bank settlements.

When asked if he knew the details of Trump’s “Deal of the Century,” Netanyahu told Channel 13 in an interview broadcast Friday that he knew what he had told Trump to include in the agreement.

“I know what I said: I said there can’t be the removal of even one settlement, and [that Israel insists on] our continued control of all the territory to the west of the Jordan,” Netanyahu said.

Which I hope is what ambassador David Friedman was referring to when he spoke of the administration understanding Israel's need to maintain control of Judea/Samaria.

Asked in the interview, which was recorded on Wednesday, whether he had specified this to Trump personally, Netanyahu said he had set out the same positions to Trump and former US President Barack Obama. He elaborated that he had specified to Trump that he would not evacuate “a single person” from the settlements.

“You said that to Trump?” he was asked.

“Like that,” he said, adding that it had been recorded.

Were the US plan to contradict those positions, he indicated, it would not be viable. “As far as I am concerned, [the evacuation of settlements] won’t be there [in the plan], and if it is [in the plan], it won’t [happen].”

Trump, he said, “is the best friend Israel has had” in the White House, and respects his position, “as I respect his,” when he insists on something.

When asked if he expected the US administration to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank like Trump recognized the Golan Heights last month, and why he wasn’t pressing Trump now to approve Israeli sovereignty over the settlements, Netanyahu said: “Wait until the next term.”

“All the settlements, without exception, those that are in blocs and those that aren’t, need to remain under Israeli sovereignty,” Netanyahu told interviewers Rani Rahav and Sharon Gal, adding that this would “eventually” happen.

Over 400,000 Jews live in West Bank settlements. Another 200,000-plus live in East Jerusalem neighborhoods annexed by Israel after the 1967 war.

I sure hope it does happen. And something tells me it will. Not only that, something tells me that in time, Europe will be able to free itself from socialist shackles it's been trapped in for centuries, and also free itself from the Islamist forces that were foisted upon it by awful politicians in past decades.

Labels: communications, islam, Israel, Jerusalem, Knesset, United States, White House