The visit will “usher in a new relationship between Israel and the United States — something that Israel has not seen in well over eight years, a relationship that will show there is no daylight,” a Trump White House official said Tuesday night.
The visit may also usher in a new era for U.S. policy toward the Middle East. On Tuesday night, White House officials briefing reporters said that Trump wouldn’t seek to impose a two-state solution for the Israel-Palestinian conflict — a break with a decades-long American posture.
“Maybe, maybe not,” one official said of the two-state solution. “It’s something the two sides have to agree to. It’s not for us to impose that vision. But I think we’ll find out more about that tomorrow.”
That would be a major gift from Trump to the Israeli leader, who faces pressure from a leading right-wing rival, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, to avoid uttering the words “two-state solution.” Bennett wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday that the meeting with Trump would be “the test of Benjamin Netanyahu’s life” and saying that “the Earth will shake” if Netanyahu uses the phrase.
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