The wide reach of Israel’s election…
As Israel prepared to go to the polls, American Middle East expert Dr Michael Doran [pictured above] told a Victoria University of Wellington audience he doubted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s election pledge to annex Jewish settlements in occupied Palestinian territories is anything more than campaign rhetoric.
Moreover, Doran told a roundtable at the University’s Centre for Strategic Studies, Netanyahu’s pledge was destined to be superseded by the imminent unveiling of US President Donald Trump and son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner’s major Middle East peace plan.
“We don’t know what’s in it exactly but we do know it’s about 50 pages long so it’s going to be a big blueprint for something,” said Doran. “The administration has withheld any discussion of it so as to give the Israelis an opportunity to just carry out their election.”
Nor was Trump likely to comment on Netanyahu’s Jewish settlement pledge while the election was on, he said.
Read the full article on Newsroom here.
The Israel Institute of New Zealand also hosted a presentation by Dr Michael Doran this week. He spoke on “Israel in today’s Middle East” in Auckland on Wednesday.
