Former US President Donald Trump on Friday pledged to bring peace to West Asia if re-elected to the White House and that he will stop the spread of anti-Semitism in America.

In a statement released by the Trump campaign after his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the former President also expressed solidarity with Israel on the “heinous” October 7 attack. The former President pledged that “when he returns to the White House, he will make every effort to bring peace to the Middle East and combat anti-Semitism from spreading throughout college campuses across the United States”.

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The Trump campaign said the Israeli Prime Minister “thanked President Trump and his Administration for working to promote stability in the region through, among many historic achievements, the Abraham Accords, moving the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, eliminating Qasem Soleimani, ending the horrific Iran Nuclear Deal, as well as combating anti-Semitism in America and abroad”. Soleimani was the head of Iran’s Quds Force who was killed in a US drone strike in 2020.

Trump welcomed Netanyahu and his wife Sara Netanyahu warmly at his Mar-a-Lago in Florida, a video of which was posted on Truth Social, a social media platform he owns.

Trump and Netanyahu had shared a close bond going back to the former President’s first term, when he had moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in recognition of a long-standing Israeli demand for the world to consider Jerusalem as the capital, despite its status as a city party claimed by the Palestinians. Trump had also recognised Golan Heights as a part of Israel, which had captured the territory from Syria in the 1967 war. The former President had capped his tight embrace of Israel by brokering the Abraham Accords that paved the way for the normalization of ties between Israel and Bahrain and Israel and the UAE.

They fell out in early 2021 when Netanyahu became one of the first world leaders to call and congratulate President Joe Biden, whose election Trump has continued to dispute to this day.

Netanyahu is a close observer of US elections and has inserted himself into US politics several times over the years. He has recently quarrelled with Biden over military supplies for Israel and could be preparing himself for Trump’s return to the White House, a possibility that is being considered in capitals around the world.