Netanyahu: Trump family real estate background could forge peace
WASHINGTON – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the real estate background of some members of the Trump administration may bring the creativity needed to forge Middle East peace.
“The thing that people don’t realize is that these people have made their mark in the markets in real estate,” Netanyahu told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria’s in an interview that aired Sunday.
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, a New York real estate developer, is handling Middle East relations. And the president rose to fame as a New York real estate mogul who wrote about a best-selling book about making the best deals.
“Now, this is not only a real estate deal,” Netanyahu acknowledged. “It’s fundamentally not a real estate deal, but a problem of recognizing Israel’s existence, the problem of not recognizing a Jewish state in any boundary. But it also has its real estate elements, and they’re, I have to say, very creative, you know. ”
Netanyahu credited the Trump administration for taking steps to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which upset the Palestinians and the many members of the United Nations.
Trump also said last month that he recognizes Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.
“President Trump made history by recognizing history, recognizing these indelible facts of the past and the present,” Netanyahu said. “And under any peace agreement, you know that the capital of Israel will continue to be Jerusalem, and the seat of our government will continue to be in Jerusalem.”
“He did a great service for peace because peace can only be based on truth,” he added.