The Washington Examiner reports: President Trump does not have an “official position” on Israeli settlement construction, his spokesman announced in a break with decades of U.S. policy.
“The Trump administration has not taken an official position on settlement activity and looks forward to continuing discussions, including with Prime Minister Netanyahu when he visits with President Trump later this month,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said in a Thursday evening statement.
Every American president since Lyndon Johnson has opposed Israeli settlement construction in territory disputed by the Palestinian Authority. The issue reached a political tipping point in December, however, when then-President Barack Obama declined to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction as a threat to the prospects of a negotiated peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Read more here.