“I don’t think there’s going to be issues of any significance or consequence in which Trump and Netanyahu will differ,” Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, said.
Klein’s hopes were buoyed when Trump announced David Friedman, a far right lawyer close to the president-elect, as his ambassador to Israel. Friedman has voiced skepticism of a two-state solution, the bedrock of U.S. policy for the conflict (and still Netanyahu’s position), and compared left-leaning pro-Israel groups like J Street to Jews who collaborated with Nazis.
He identified other signposts as well, such as the GOP platform this year, adopted at Trump’s nominating convention, which eliminated prior mentions of a two-state solution and condemned “the false notion that Israel is an occupier” while still supporting peace efforts.
These signals represent somewhat of an evolution for Trump. During the primaries, he said he planned to be “neutral” in negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders and even questioned whether Israel was “willing to sacrifice certain things” to achieve peace.
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