many u.s. presidents. it is indeed. i spend most of my professional career trying to figure out a way to bring israelis and palestinians and arabs together. today, john and alisyn, the key for mr. trump and mr. netanyahu to demonstrate that the channel has been changed. the tension and dysfunction from the obama years has now been replaced with a greater understanding and greater willingness to manage differences in the u.s./israeli relation and do it quietly and discreetly. i think the effort made by each man and they alone have the capacity to move this relationship and israeli peace making forward. mr. trump because he inherited the an alignment with the arab states and mr. netanyahu because he has the capacity. he believes to manage this
world, it is the source of obviously some counterterrorism, but also the source of terrorism. i mean, it s sort of the complete package, and that was not talked about during the visit that saudi arabia is the source of financing for terrorism including 9/11, 15 of the 19. one person who is definitely enjoying this trip and that s benjamin netanyahu. practically giddy next to president trump. he is talking about how this is a new day in israel-u.s. relationships. he s very happy. yeah, and he has good reason to be. he has in donald trump someone who has already given him as the leader of israel the thing he wants most which is unqualified support against iran, and he s also given him this thing he wants second most which is not too much pressure on settlements and peace-making. i will say that there was some tension mild tension, but
them. and so i think that he will do the deal of the possible. everybody likes to talk about grandiose deals, solving once and for all the israeli, palestinian conflict. i m not sure we re there. in fact, i know that there are wide gaps. i know that abbas told president obama in the oval office i ll get back to you on a generous proposal he was given and he never got back. so i think what we have to do is see what is possible. and there are great economic possibilities that can create the infrastructure for peace-making. one thing about president trump, he is a big vision guy. he is a person who can see the possibilities of trains and highways connecting israeli ports, crossing israel, jordan, and going to the gulf. that s the kind of person that can probably lead to a different middle east. not the middle east we have seen for the last 30 years.
middle east, europe, all around the world. they look to us, read the paper about us, they hope we ll be a counter force against some of the bad guys in the world. now we re saying, you re on your own? this is going to be the challenge. when you eliminate your soft power or the diplomacy, you end up having to rely on your milita mite. this is a national security budget that focuses on the hard power, which is war. not a budget that allows the united states to focus on peace making and peace building, people around the world admire the u.s. want to come here, that often helps us in these situations, when we disagree on policy. if we no longer have this level of engagement and providing humanitarian aid, no longer providing any support for freedom of the press, democracy and the governments, other people will fill that vacuum, people like putin, countries like china, who frankly do not have who do not share the ideals of the united states. well, i mean, put on top of
tradition. behind the scenes one can see as well that the case has to be made because what is incoming in the trump administration is a position that it s not clear where they stand on middle east peace making. for example, the republican party platform did not include support for a two-state solution breaking with years of tradition in the republican party. so i think it s laying this out so that we can have a public debate about these issues going forward is what secretary kerry s going to try to propose. obviously prime minister netanyahu has some very critical, he said according to our information we have no doubt the obama administration initiated it, meaning the resolution, stood behind it, coordinated the wording and demanded it be passed. so would you expect a defense, a rebuttal to that today? it s certain that could be part of it, but we re even seeing reporting that it was the british that were very actively promoting this resolution. this administration has nothing to a