Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to name a new Golan settlement after Donald Trump to thank the American President for his support.
During a visit to the area, Mr Netanyahu tweeted that after Pesach, “I intend to bring to the government a resolution calling for a new community on the Golan Heights named after President Donald J Trump”.
He said “all Israelis were deeply moved” by the president’s recognition last month of Israeli sovereignty over the area, which was captured from Syria in the Six-Day War in 1967 and annexed in 1981.
In a sharp break from international consensus, the US last year moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in line with its recognition of the city as Israel’s capital.
The USA's long-awaited Middle East peace plan is likely to be unveiled after the end of Ramadan in early June, according to Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and special adviser to the White House.
Speaking at a conference organised by Time magazine this week, he did not reveal its contents. But when asked about the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to Newsweek he replied, “We’ve taken what I think is an unconventional approach. We’ve studied the past efforts and how they failed and why they failed. If people focus on the old traditional talking points, we’re never going to make progress."
Mr Kushner said that Mr Netanyahu was in the midst of forming a coalition after his "great victory" in the recent Israeli elections. "Once that’s done we’ll probably be in the middle of Ramadan, so we’ll wait until after Ramadan and then we’ll put our plan out."
