Trump
says Israeli-Palestinian deal may be impossible
Send a link to a friend
[February 18, 2016]
By Emily Flitter
SUMTER, S.C. (Reuters) - Donald Trump, who
has argued his experience negotiating tough real estate deals makes him
best qualified to be U.S. president, said on Wednesday it might be
impossible to forge a lasting peace agreement between the Israelis and
the Palestinians.
|
During a televised town hall session hosted by MSNBC in South
Carolina, Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential
nomination, said he believed getting a deal done would be "very,
very tough."
The remarks were notable not only because Trump rarely discusses
Israel or the Mideast peace process on the campaign trail, but also
because they seemed to show a shift in Trump's views on the
feasibility of a deal.
Trump said in December he would start working on a deal between the
two sides within the first six months of taking office if elected.
In those earlier comments, he also said he thought a deal would be
hard to make, but added he thought it depended whether the Israelis
really wanted to make one.
In his comments on Wednesday, Trump said he'd heard from an Israeli
that "the other side has been trained from the time they're children
to hate Jewish people," and that was why a deal might not work. "You
have one side in particular growing up and learning that these are
the worst people," he said.
"I would say if you can do that deal you can do any deal," he added.
"That's probably the toughest deal in the world right now to make
and it's possible it's not makeable."
[to top of second column] |
The town hall was part of Trump's final push to translate his
substantial lead in the South Carolina polls to a victory in the
state's Republican primary election, which takes place on Saturday.
He also appeared before South Carolina audiences on Wednesday in the
towns of Bluffton, Walterboro and Sumter.
Trump said he'd still try to get a peace deal done, even if the odds
for success were slim: "I'm going to give it a shot."
(Reporting By Emily Flitter in Sumter, South Carolina; Editing by
Michael Perry)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |