“The best days are yet to come”
Netanyahu is looking forward to Trump's term in office
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The new US President receives warm congratulations from Jerusalem on his inauguration. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the settlers see Trump as a strong ally for their concerns. Palestinian President Abbas also expressed his hopes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised the new US President Donald Trump a close and successful cooperation. The “best days of our alliance are yet to come,” Netanyahu said in a video message about US-Israeli relations. In the video, he congratulated Trump on his inauguration as the 47th US President and emphasized: “By working together again, we will take the US-Israel alliance to new heights.”
A day after a ceasefire came into force between Israel and the radical Islamic Hamas in the Gaza war, Netanyahu also thanked the new US President for his contribution to bringing about the agreement. Netanyahu said he looked forward to working with Trump “to repatriate the last hostages, destroy Hamas' military capabilities, end its political power in the Gaza Strip and ensure that the Gaza Strip never again poses a threat to Israel.”
The Israeli prime minister also praised Trump's Middle East policy during his first term in office from 2017 to 2021. At that time, the US “withdrew from the dangerous nuclear deal with Iran, recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, moved the US embassy to Jerusalem and the sovereignty of Israel “recognized over the Golan Heights”. Netanyahu also praised Trump's role in bringing about the so-called Abraham Accords, through which Israel normalized its relations with four Arab countries.
Settlers hope to annex the West Bank
Israeli settlers in the West Bank also have high hopes for Trump's second term. Trump's 2020 Middle East peace plan called for the annexation of parts of the Palestinian territory by Israel. At that time the project failed. But with Trump's return to the White House, supporters of annexation see their chance. 2025 will be “the year of the sovereignty of Judea and Samaria,” recently announced the right-wing extremist Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler in the West Bank.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also congratulated Trump and expressed his willingness to cooperate. “We are ready to work with you to achieve peace during your term, based on a two-state solution,” Abbas said in a statement carried by the Palestinian news agency Wafa. This means that “the State of Palestine and the State of Israel live side by side in security and peace, ensuring security and stability in our region and the world.”
The two-state solution with an independent Palestinian state has been the basis of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations for decades. Netanyahu has repeatedly reiterated that he does not want to tolerate an independent Palestinian state.
