He added that under the proposal, “Israel would have to pay.”
Unless the Palestinian Authority shows that it wants to make peace, the US will “not have anything to do with them any longer,” US President Donald Trump said Thursday in Davos before meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I can tell you, Israel does want to make peace, and they [the Palestinians] are going to have to want to make peace too, or we aren’t going to have anything to do with them any longer,” Trump said. “This was not brought up by other negotiators, but it is brought up by me.”
Trump did not hide his anger toward the Palestinians for snubbing Vice President Mike Pence during his visit in Israel this week, saying that the US will withhold aid funds to them until they return to negotiations.
The Palestinians, he said, “disrespected us” by not “allowing our great vice president to see them, and we give them hundreds of millions of dollars in aid support.”
That money, Trump said, will not go to the Palestinians “unless they sit down and negotiate peace.”
Trump said that his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December has taken that issue off the table, and that previous negotiators have never gotten beyond that point.
Trump did not hide his anger toward the Palestinians for snubbing Vice President Mike Pence during his visit in Israel this week, saying that the US will withhold aid funds to them until they return to negotiations.
The Palestinians, he said, “disrespected us” by not “allowing our great vice president to see them, and we give them hundreds of millions of dollars in aid support.”
That money, Trump said, will not go to the Palestinians “unless they sit down and negotiate peace.”
Trump said that his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December has taken that issue off the table, and that previous negotiators have never gotten beyond that point.
“You won one point,” he said to Netanyahu regarding Jerusalem, “and you’ll give up some points later in the negotiations, if it ever takes place.”
Trump said he was not sure if those negotiations will ever begin. “They [the Palestinians] have to respect the process also, and they have to respect the fact the the US has given tremendous support to them over the years, in terms of monetary support and other support. We give them hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Why should we do that as a country if they are doing nothing for us?”
Netanyahu said that the US-Israel relationship has never been stronger, and that he and Netanyahu are close personal friends.
The embassy move to Jerusalem, he said, “is way ahead of schedule by years,” and “we anticipate having a small version of it open there some time next year.”