Special to WorldTribune.com
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump supports a “two-state solution” for Israel and Palestine but said Palestinians “have to stop” teaching their children to embrace terrorism.
“The children, I sort of talked about it pretty much in the [AIPAC] speech, but the children are aspiring to grow up to be terrorists,” said Trump in an interview published by The New York Times on March 26.
“They are taught to grow up to be terrorists. And they have to stop. They have to stop the terror. They have to stop the stabbings and all of the things going on. And they have to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.”
“Now whether or not the Palestinians can live with that? You would think they could. It shouldn’t be hard except that the ingrained hatred is tremendous.”
In his speech at the AIPAC Policy Conference, in which he reiterated his support for Israel, Trump called on the Palestinian Authority to stop the terror and incitement and rejected any “moral equivalence” between Israel and Palestinian terrorists.
“Israel does not name public squares after terrorists. Israel does not pay its children to stab random Palestinians. What President Obama gets wrong about deal making is that he constantly applies pressure on our friends and rewards our enemies.”
Trump took heat from his GOP rivals over previous comments in which he hinted he would be “neutral” on the Israel-Palestinian conflict if elected president.
Trump’s closest competitor for the GOP nomination, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, said he would not be neutral and would be on Israel’s side.
“I think both of them missed the mark,” Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton said, stressing that “Israel is our partner, our ally.” Clinton also said she would push for the two-state solution if elected.
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