Dateline Washington — When Donald Trump addressed the Republican Jewish Coalition’s Presidential Forum last December, he proved again why the runaway success of his divisive campaign has upturned the expectations of so many.
A Republican hopeful seeking the support of a room full of pro-Israel Republicans, he doubted Israel’s willingness to make peace and declined to call Jerusalem the undivided capital of the Jewish state, a position that is held by most other candidates in his party.
But what most of the headlines coming out of the gathering highlighted was the manner in which Mr. Trump invoked what many consider to be offensive Jewish stereotypes, which included him saying, “You’re not gonna support me because I don’t want your money. You want to control your politicians. That’s fine.”
When the crowd erupted with boos over his answer to the Jerusalem question, Mr. Trump tried to reassure them. “Do me a favor. Just relax,” he said. “You’ll like me very much, believe me.”
Following Mr. Trump’s strong Super Tuesday showing — in which he won seven of the 11 states that held GOP primary contests — people aren’t relaxing. The question of what a Trump presidency would mean for Israel is becoming an increasingly pressing one for those who care about the country’s future.
While Mr. Trump’s domination of the primary process has thus far impelled a number of pundits to predict that the Republican primary could lead to a brokered convention, something that hasn’t happened since 1948, his overwhelming performance Tuesday gives his candidacy a head of steam toward potentially securing the nomination.
Where does the real-estate-magnate-turned-politician stand on the key issues relating to Israel?
While Mr. Trump has refused to offer specifics over how he would achieve his largest goals concerning the Jewish state, mainly securing a two-state accommodation between Israelis and Palestinians and preventing the Iranian regime from acquiring a nuclear weapon, he has repeatedly referred to himself as “totally pro-Israel.”
There is a caveat when it comes to how far, and in what circumstances, he is willing to go in declaring himself a staunch ally of the Jewish state. Most notably, he has diverged from his party’s standard rhetoric on an emotionally charged foreign policy issue, by vowing to maintain neutrality on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
‘Sort of a Neutral Guy’
Last month, Mr. Trump promised to “give it one hell of a shot” when asked what steps he would take to broker an elusive peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians. “It’s probably the toughest agreement of any kind to make,” he said at an MSNBC town hall event in Charleston, SC.
Pressed further by host Joe Scarborough over whether he felt either party was more at fault over the ongoing failure to reach an accord, Mr. Trump declined to take sides.
“You know, I don’t want to get into it, because… If I win, I don’t want to be in a position where I’m saying to you and the other side now says, ‘We don’t want Trump involved,’” he told Mr. Scarborough. “Let me be sort of a neutral guy. A lot of people have gone down in flames trying to make that deal. So I don’t want to say whose fault is it. I don’t think it helps.”
That answer created a firestorm over Israel policy in the Republican race and became fodder for a series of attacks from Mr. Trump’s rivals, including a testy exchange at the Feb. 25 Republican presidential debate, when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer pressed Mr. Trump, “How do you remain neutral when the U.S. considers Israel to be America’s closest ally in the Middle East?”
“As president… there is nothing I would rather do than to bring peace to Israel and its neighbors generally,” Mr. Trump responded. “I think it serves no purpose to say that you have a good guy and a bad guy. Now, I may not be successful in doing it. It’s probably the toughest negotiation anywhere in the world of any kind. It doesn’t help if I start saying I’m very pro-Israel.”
Mr. Trump’s two biggest Republican challengers, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, subsequently attacked Mr. Trump, with Mr. Rubio calling Mr. Trump’s position “anti-Israel.”
“You cannot be an honest broker in a dispute between two sides in which one of the sides is constantly acting in bad faith,” Mr. Rubio said. “The Palestinian Authority has walked away from multiple efforts to make peace, very generous offers from the Israelis. Instead, here’s what they do. They teach their four-year-old children that killing Jews is a glorious thing.”
While Mr. Trump has not commented publicly on previous attempts by Israeli prime ministers to strike a deal, he has expressed skepticism over the sincerity of Israel’s declarations of wanting to achieve a two-state outcome.
Pressing Question
“First thing you have to ask, do they both want to make it?” he said in a December 2015 interview with AP. “I have a real question as to whether both sides want to make it. I have a real question as to whether one side in particular whether or not they want to make it. I think one side actually would like a deal and I think the other one maybe doesn’t want a deal, to be honest.”
When pushed to say which side he was talking about, Mr. Trump wouldn’t specify. Later in the interview he said, “In my opinion, if Israel wants a deal I think a deal can be made.”
In that same interview, Mr. Trump said he had certain views on the conflict but would prefer to keep them private so as to not create any preconceived notions among the Israeli or Palestinian leadership. “We show our cards too much, so if I get into that, I don’t want to say this or that and then they’ll say, ‘Well Trump is biased one way or the other,’” he said.
And yet, Mr. Trump has also expressed skepticism over the possibility of achieving a two-state solution, given the conditions of the conflict and the need for any agreement to be sustainable over time. He has also suggested that hostility between the two peoples was becoming an increasing obstacle to bridging differences, while also hinting at what he considers the root of the conflict.
“A lot of people say an agreement can’t be made, which is okay. I mean, sometimes agreements can’t be made. Not good, but, you know, you have both sides really, but one side in particular, growing up and learning that these are the worst people,” he told Mr. Scarborough at the town hall event. “I was with a very prominent Israeli the other day. He says it’s impossible, because the other side has been trained from the time they’re children to hate Jewish people.”
Mr. Trump has said he would know within his first six months in office whether a deal can be made.
This story was written for timesofisrael.com
