Following their meeting at Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a joint press conference.
Netanyahu opened by buttering Trump up. He lauded the US-Israel partnership as “second to none” in international affairs. Netanyahu said that he announced to Trump over lunch that Israel would bestow the Israel Prize upon Trump, making him the first non-Israeli to win the nation’s highest cultural honor.
Trump was happy to reciprocate, lavishing praise upon the “war-time prime minister” without whom Israel might not today exist. Asked whether Israel was delaying implementation of phase 2 of the peace plan, Trump gave Israel his full support: “I’m not concerned about anything that Israel is doing.… Israel’s lived up to the plan 100%.”
Regarding Gaza, Trump reiterated that half of Gazans would be happy to move out if given the opportunity. He said that Hamas will be given a short period of time to disarm. If they don’t, “there will be hell to pay for them.” On the West Bank, Trump said that it was an area where there was not 100% agreement between the two, but that he believed Netanyahu would “do the right thing.”
On the region more broadly, Trump said that if Iran builds up its military, the U.S. would “eradicate that build-up.”
Netanyahu took the opportunity to back Trump’s strike in Nigeria, said to have been an attack against anti-Christian violence, in laying out his own rationale for exerting Israeli influence over Syria, in the name of protecting Druze and Christians, he claimed.
Regarding China’s current military exercises around Taiwan, Trump emphasized that he had a good relationship with President Xi and said that China’s military activity was nothing new and did not worry him.
