Israel settler leader: Trump is no friend of Israel

A top settler leader yesterday said that US President Donald Trump and his senior adviser Jared Kushner have shown through their so-called “deal of the century” that “they are not friends of the State of Israel”.

Over the past weeks, right-wing settlers, including David Elhayani who chairs the so-called Yesha Council umbrella group of settler mayors, have opposed the conditions stated in Trump’s “peace plan” arguing it would open the door for a Palestinian state while ending any expansion of Israeli settlements in much of the occupied West Bank.

Trump and his top Middle East adviser Jared Kushner “are not friends of Israel”, Elhayani told the Haaretz newspaper.

Trump’s plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace includes Israel keeping most of its illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, territory that Palestinians seek for a state.

READ: US angers Israel by suggesting an eastern border for the Zionist state

Palestinians have rejected Trump’s proposal.

Elhayani added that the president and Kushner, his son-in-law, “do not have Israel’s security and settlement interests in mind” and that “the only thing they’re concerned about regarding the plan is promoting their own interests ahead of the upcoming election.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “fiercely condemned” Elhayani’s statements insisting that “President Trump is a great friend of the State of Israel.”

“He has led historic processes for the good of the State of Israel, among them recognising Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem and recognising the legality of the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria,” he said in reference to the occupied West Bank.

Netanyahu has repeatedly said he plans to move forward with unilaterally annexing these areas beginning next month, though the US has reportedly told him to “slow the process”.

READ: The annexation in the controversy of the Israeli right