The settlements are not really the obstacle to peace. They are on land set aside for the State of Israel by international agreement going back decades. They are on land, what’s more, that Israel won control of in war: Israel is the only country for which the right of conquest, universally recognized elsewhere, is not recognized. If the jihadis did not have the settlements to complain about, they would find some other pretext. The goal is to destroy Israel utterly, and the furor over the settlements is just one means to that end.
“Trump to Israel: Keep Building Settlements, Israel Today, May 3, 2016:
US Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump said in an interview with the UK’s Daily Mail on Tuesday that Israel should continue building settlements in Judea and Samaria.
Trump told the newspaper that if elected president, he’d love to negotiate a genuine peace, “not a peace that lasts for two weeks and they start launching missiles again,” between Israel and the Palestinians.
In the meantime, regarding Jewish settlements in the territories claimed by the Palestinians, Trump said Israel should “keep moving forward.”
Trump took the opportunity to again lambast President Barack Obama’s treatment of the Jewish state.
“Look, missiles were launched into Israel, and Israel, I think, never was properly treated by our country. I mean, do you know what that is, how devastating that is?” asked the real estate mogul.
Trump went on to note that while he doesn’t know Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that well, “I think I’d have a very good relationship with him” as the next American president.