Trump’s Push for Mideast Deal Perplexes Israeli Right
Many in ruling coalition, and West Bank settlers, are content with the way things are
Much of Israel’s governing coalition is pretty happy with the status quo.The Israeli economy is booming. Jewish population growth has nearly caught up with Palestinian birthrates. And the level of violence remains at historic lows. The wars ravaging the wider Middle East, meanwhile, have distracted regional attention from the Palestinians’ predicament and have even pushed countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia toward more cooperation with Israel.
.. “There is nothing more sustainable than the current situation that has already existed for 50 years and that is getting better all the time,” said retired Brig. Gen. Effie Eitam
.. That’s why Mr. Trump’s ambition to resolve the intractable dispute—a solution that would likely require Israel to accept Palestinian statehood and give up most of the territory it has occupied since 1967—has confounded Israel’s right-wing coalition ..
.. Mr. Netanyahu’s cabinet—seeking to accommodate American requests—has already imposed modest new limits on West Bank settlement expansion.
That’s not something that the West Bank settlers’ leaders had expected from a Trump White House.
.. the Yesha Council, said it was disappointing that Washington still wanted to halt settlement growth instead of looking for new “out of the box” solutions.
.. it won’t be solved by one side getting an order not to build so that children [of settlers] cannot live next to their parents—while the Palestinians can build as much as they can, and are building new cities,”
.. “To be honest,” he said, “nobody knows what will happen with Trump tomorrow.”