Netanyahu postpones meeting over settlements to avoid friction with Trump

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, postponed a meeting designed to approve West Bank settlement building projects, Thursday.  A senior official told Haaretz that Netanyahu’s office had asked that the meeting with Israel’s Civil Administration’s High Planning Committee to be pushed back until after the forthcoming visit of US President Donald Trump, at the end of May.

The senior official went on to explain that this delay was intended to avoid antagonizing the US over the issue of settlement construction and avoid the possibility of making the whole visit about that issue. the official said:

We didn’t want to hold discussions on the settlements close to Trump’s visit

A similar event took place in 2010 when the construction of 1600 new settlement units were announced during the visit of US vice president Joe Biden.