Foreign Policy

In this blog post I am going to be talking about Foreign Policy in the US government, and more specifically about how President Trump has dealt with the conflict in Israel between the Palestinians and Israelis differently than President Obama.

President Trump’s stance on foreign policy in Israel is completely opposite from that of former President Obama. President Obama was extremely critical of the Israeli government’s efforts to increase the settlements in the West Bank, which led to poor relations between the US and Israel. President Trump on the other hand supports Israeli settlement of the West Bank. Ways in which Trump has done this has been by publicly backing Netanyahu for his upcoming election, of whom desires to have Israeli sovereignty of disputed territories especially in the West Bank. Another way in which Trump has differed from previous foreign policy regarding Israel is moving out of the Iran Nuclear accord, and most importantly, moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. 

Jerusalem was once named a neutral international city for both Palestine and Israel. However, when Trump moved the US embassy of Israel to Jerusalem, he identified this as the capital of Israel, effectively removing any Palestinian control of Jerusalem and completely giving the claim of Jerusalem to Israel and nothing to Palestine. Because of the US support of Netanyahu by Trump, Netanyahu is more likely to set a hard line on the settlement of the West Bank, which will likely cause and intensify violence between Palestinians and Israelites in the disputed territory as the Palestinians becoming more and more suffocated by Israeli power.