Trump's careful statements on settlements, taken with his strong pro-Israel rhetoric, suggest a balanced approach to the complex US-Israel alliance not always evident in his pronouncements. It may be his experience as a life-long New Yorker that lets him see the difference between Israel, the Likud coalition which has run the government in recent times, and the Ultra-Orthodox Jews who, in New York and in Israel have a theocratic extremism which is not widely shared outside their closed communities. Or perhaps he is just setting things up for his meeting with Netanyahu. Trump has a way of faking to one side before entering negotiations in which he really wants to go the other way. We'll see soon enough, I'll warrant.
