Posted on 08/21/22
| News Source: Arutz-7
Former Ambassador Ron Dermer, who served as Israel's Ambassador to Washington during the Trump Administration, challenged Jared Kushner's assertion that then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was unenthused about then-President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
Speaking with Israel Hayom on the released excerpts from Kushner's book, 'Breaking History: A White House Memoir,' Dermer said that Netanyahu and all his advisers raised the request for recognition of Jerusalem even before Trump took office and many times after that. "When the prime minister came to Washington in February 2017, and when Trump came to Jerusalem in May of that year, he heard from Netanyahu about his support for the move. Trump and his team had heard from Netanyahu and me for a year, how much we wanted the recognition of Jerusalem. Netanyahu from the beginning to the end was in favor of this decision and I acted in Washington to promote it."
Dermer says that Trump shared with Netanyahu the American intelligence community's fear of violence and possibly even a war breaking out following the recognition of Jerusalem. To this Netanyahu replied that "our intelligence does not show that there will be an explosion. But even if there was such intelligence they would support the decision because it is so important to us." Dermer also reveals that during one of the rounds of talks with the Americans on the subject, Netanyahu took the head of the National Security Council at the time, Meir Ben Shabbat, off the plane just before taking off for Africa, so that the Americans would receive an unequivocal message regarding Israel's support for the move.
In an except from his book, Kushner claimed that when Trump informed Netanyahu of his decision to recognize Jerusalem, instead of thanking him him, Netanyahu said: “If you choose to do that, I will support you.” According to Kushner, this caused Trump to second-guess his decision.