The NY Times published its Friday interview on foreign policy issues with Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump. Trump spoke over the phone with Maggie Haberman and David E. Sanger. Israel came up towards the end of the very long conversation, and it flowed out of Trump’s discussion of the shortcomings of President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal. Here is a somewhat redacted version:
Haberman: … “I’m curious, in terms of Israel, and in terms of the peace process, do you think it should result in a two-state solution, or in a single state?”
Trump: “Well, I think a lot of people are saying it’s going to result in a two-state solution. … I’m not saying anything. What I’m going to do is, you know, I specifically don’t want to address the issue because I would love to see if a deal could be made. If a deal could be made. Now, I’m not sure it can be made, there’s such unbelievable hatred, there’s such, it’s ingrained, it’s in the blood, the hatred and the distrust, and the horror. But I would love to see if a real deal could be made. Not a deal that you know, lasts for three months, and then everybody starts shooting again. And a big part of that deal, you know, has to be to end terror, we have to end terror.
“But I would say this, in order to negotiate a deal, I’d want to go in there as evenly as possible and we’ll see if we can negotiate a deal. But I would absolutely give that a very hard try to do. You know, a lot of people think that’s the hardest of all deals to negotiate. A lot of people think that. So, but I would say that I would have a better chance than anybody of making a deal. I’ll tell you one thing, people that I know from Israel, many people, many, many people, and almost everybody would love to see a deal on the side of Israel. … I’m not so sure that the other side can mentally, you know, get their heads around the deal, because the hatred is so incredible. Folks, I have to go.”
Later, down the interview, the conversation reached once again the peace process between Israel and the Arabs.
Trump: Basically I support a two-state solution on Israel. But the Palestinian Authority has to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Have to do that. And they have to stop the terror, stop the attacks, stop the teaching of hatred, you know? The children, I sort of talked about it pretty much in the speech, but the children are aspiring to grow up to be terrorists. 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 that Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. … And if they can’t, you’re never going to make a deal. One state, two states, it doesn’t matter: you’re never going to be able to make a deal.
“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.”