Mon 13 May 2019:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that a site for a promised new settlement to be named after U.S. President Donald Trump had been chosen and formal approval was under way. “I promised that we would establish a community named after President Trump,” Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. “I would like to inform you that we have already selected a site in the Golan Heights where this new community will be established, and we have started the process,” he said in Hebrew.
Netanyahu pledged such a move last month, in appreciation of Trump’s recognition of Israel’s claim of sovereignty over part of the strategic plateau. Trump broke with longstanding international consensus on March 25 when he recognised Israel’s claim of sovereignty over the part of the Golan it seized from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War. In December 2017, he said Washington would recognise the disputed city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, sparking outrage among the Palestinians who claim Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem as the capital of their own future state.
