A senior Israeli minister has broken ranks to criticise Donald Trump for failing to deliver on his election campaign promise to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, after the Trump administration suggested over the weekend there was little chance of the mission being relocated in the near future.
Ze’ev Elkin, minister for Jerusalem affairs and environmental protection, said keeping the embassy in Tel Aviv would not advance peace and warned Israel could approve further construction in the occupied Palestinian territories.
“I deeply regret that President Trump has chosen to delay keeping his election promise to move the American embassy to Jerusalem because of the illusion that it will be possible to advance any real peace process with the current Palestinian leadership,” said Elkin, a minister from Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.
His comments on settlement-building appeared to be a deliberate attempt to jump the gun on a widely expected announcement by the prime minister to green-light about 4,000 new settlement housing units in the occupied Palestinian territories.
In its own spin on the settlement-building plans, however, a senior Netanyahu official said the Israeli prime minister had in reality done a deal with the Trump administration to permit the announcement of new settlement construction every three to four months.
Speaking to the Israeli news site Ynet on Sunday, the official explained: “There was a long dry period during the Obama era, and we were hit with condemnations for every construction in the settlement.
“After Trump came into office, Israel and the new American administration set clear criteria for construction that the Americans were not opposed to, such as canceling the distinction between settlement blocs and isolated settlements. In addition, it was made clear that the Americans no longer consider the settlements an obstacle to peace.”
Elkin’s remarks follow comments on Sunday by settler leader Yossi Dagan, until now a vocal admirer of the US president, who accused Trump’s advisers of supplying him with misinformation around settlement-building.That interpretation, however, seems sharply at odds with repeated public statements by US officials that insist the Trump administration “has made clear that unrestrained settlement activity does not advance the prospect of peace”.
“We are pleased that Trump was elected but not satisfied with the direction that people around him are taking with regard to Judea and Samaria. He has unfortunately received misinformation.”
Elkin’s criticism of Trump came as Likud members appeared to be jostling for position should Netanyahu, who faces a series of corruption investigations, leave politics.
The transport and intelligence minister, Yisrael Katz, this weekend formally announced he would seek the leadership of the Likud party and would run for prime minister after Netanyahu leaves office.
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