It might have to be next year in Jerusalem.
Donald J. Trump announced on Thursday that he was postponing the trip he planned to take to Israel later this month. He said he would instead meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after he becomes president.
The change of travel plans comes as Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, has created an international firestorm with his proposal to bar Muslims from entering the United States.
Mr. Trump was planning to meet with Mr. Netanyahu, who often welcomes American presidential candidates, and visit the Temple Mount, the contested Jerusalem holy site that has been a major source of friction between Israel and the Palestinians.
But the Israeli prime minister faced backlash over the meeting from allies and opponents who consider Mr. Trump’s plan to be discriminatory. Mr. Netanyahu rejected Mr. Trump’s remarks about Muslims this week but had said the meeting would go on as a matter of policy.
Mr. Trump, who once campaigned for Mr. Netanyahu, suggested that he was doing him a favor by dropping the visit.
“I didn’t want to put him under pressure,” Mr. Trump said on Fox News on Thursday. “I also did it because I’m in the midst of a very powerful campaign, that’s going very well, and it was not that easy to do.”
Michal Rozin, a left-wing member of Israel’s Parliament who garnered signatures from about a third of the state’s lawmakers calling on Mr. Netanyahu to cancel his meeting with Mr. Trump, on Thursday declared “a victory of the democratic values of the state of Israel.”
“We’ve succeeded. racism has surrendered to us,” Ms. Rozin of the Meretz Party said through her spokesman. “Trump has received the message that the state of Israel has no room for a racist, chauvinist and benighted person like him.”
A spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu, David Baker, did not return an email message asking for reaction on Thursday afternoon, though Israel Radio reported that the prime minister’s office had denied any role in the cancellation.
On Wednesday evening, the office had issued a statement saying that Mr. Netanyahu “rejects Donald Trump’s recent remarks about Muslims,” but that he had “decided earlier this year on a uniform policy to agree to meet with all presidential candidates from either party who visit Israel and ask for a meeting.”
“This policy does not represent an endorsement of any candidate or his or her views,” the Wednesday statement said. “Rather, it is an expression of the importance that Prime Minister Netanyahu attributes to the strong alliance between Israel and the United States.”
Poster Comment:
Well you really can't blame Bibi for not wanting to be seen with a jackbooted Nazi.
