Just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to deal with allegations of a conflict of interest regarding the submarine deal with Germany and devoted his entire agenda to the legal and media handling of the crisis, came reports of the diplomatic indiscretions of the chairman of HaBayit HaYehudi, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, in New York.
On Nov. 21, Netanyahu learned from information published in the press, among other sources, that Bennett used his visit to the United States in his second role as minister of diaspora affairs to meet with three advisers of President-elect Donald Trump on Nov. 20. According to the reports, Bennett asked them to transmit a message to the president-elect that he shouldn’t rush to adopt the two-state solution as an official policy. He presented them with his economic-diplomatic plan, which includes the creation of a Palestinian autonomy in parts of the West Bank with investments in infrastructure development, alongside a gradual inception of Israeli sovereignty through the annexation of settlements.
Netanyahu, whose patience for Bennett had long run out after many conflicts between the two, was enraged. Immediately following the US presidential elections, the chairman of HaBayit HaYehudi jubilantly announced that the era of the two-state solution is over and led cries of joy among the right. Netanyahu argued that these sorts of declarations are damaging to Israel’s interests and asked his ministers to refrain for the time being from statements on diplomatic issues. But not only did Bennett violate his request, he made direct contact with associates of the president-elect and met with them. Bennett wasn’t the only member of HaBayit HaYehudi to deal directly with Trump’s people. On Nov. 18, the activist minister of agriculture, Uri Ariel, wrote a personal letter to Steve Bannon, Trump’s controversial adviser who has been accused of anti-Semitism. Ariel called him a friend of the Israeli right and thanked him for his position against the nuclear deal with Iran and his opposition to boycotts of Israel.
Bennett and Ariel’s actions obviously have political significance for the settler right — their main electoral base — which sees them as waging an unyielding diplomatic battle outside Israel.
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