Trump Marks Rosh Hashanah

The Fellowship  |  September 7, 2018

Ahead of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year that begins Sunday at sundown, Donald Trump made a call to American Jewish leaders. The Times of Israel reports that the President spoke about the ongoing peace process, as well as how he is handling situations with those who wish ill to the Jewish state and the Jewish people:

“What I will tell you is I stopped massive amounts of money that we were paying to the Palestinians and the Palestinian leaders,” Trump said to the Jewish leaders. “The United States was paying them tremendous amounts of money. And I say, ‘You’ll get money, but we’re not paying until you make a deal. If you don’t make a deal, we’re not paying…'”

Asked by Prof. Alan Dershowitz: “Should the Jewish community be optimistic that you can help bring about a peaceful resolution of the conflict that we all pray for all the time?,” the president replied: “The answer to that is a very strong yes — you should be. It is, as I said before, really considered to be one of the toughest deals to make of any kind. I don’t kind what kind of a deal you’re talking about. If you look at Israel and the Palestinians, it’s always top of everybody’s list in terms of levels of difficulty.”

Trump also said that he had removed the first obstacle to a deal: Jerusalem — which Trump last December recognized as Israel’s capital and where in May he moved his embassy. Further ahead, Israel would have to do something for the Palestinians, he said, without specifying.

“The fact is that I took something off the table,” said Trump. “If you go back and look at your negotiations with the Palestinians over the years, the first thing was Jerusalem and moving the embassy to Jerusalem, thereby making it the capital. And I will tell you, we’ve taken that off the table…”