A former Marine General seen as one of President-elect Donald Trump’s leading candidates for Defense Secretary said West Bank settlements are turning Israel into an apartheid entity.
Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, also said that the United States pays a price for its support of Israel, the Times of Israel reported. An unnamed official “familiar with the transition process” told CNN that Mattis can be considered a leading candidate for secretary of defense.
When Trump was asked by reporters whether Mattis is a candidate to lead the Department, Trump said, “All I can say is he is the real deal. He is the real deal.” Mattis ran US Central Command in from August 2010 to March 2013. In that position he had command authority for all US forces in the Middle East.
“I paid a military security price every day as the commander of CentCom because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel, and that moderates all the moderate Arabs who want to be with us, because they can’t come out publicly in support of people who don’t show respect for the Arab Palestinians,” Mattis said in 2013 at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado.
At the same forum Mattis criticized Israel for settlement building, saying that the settlements “are going to make it impossible to maintain the so-called two-state option.” Mattis was an outspoken critic of the Iran nuclear deal, which exchanged a nuclear rollback for sanctions relief. Also on Saturday, Trump met 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for over an hour, fueling speculation that Romney could be Trump’s choice for secretary of state.
Following the meeting Romney told reporters that he and Trump “had a far-reaching conversation with regards to the various theaters in the world.
Source: News Agencies
