Contrary to Palestinian claims, the core of the so-called Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not Jewish settlement activity but the Palestinian refusal to accept Israel’s existence, contended Breitbart Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein.

Klein was asked to comment on the matter during a panel discussion on Israel’s i24NEWS (video above).

Klein stated: “There is no problem I believe with Jewish construction in already existing Jewish communities and to believe that somehow the construction – that Jews building homes – is the core of the conflict is absurd.”

“The core of the conflict is and has always been the Palestinian refusal to accept a state and their advocacy for the destruction of Israel,” Klein added. “Israel has shown time and again that they are willing to make painful concessions.”

Earlier in the program, Klein noted the Jewish historic and religious connections to West Bank cities.

The i24NEWS panel was addressing whether U.S. policy toward Israeli settlements had shifted in light of an official visit by President Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, to a West Bank Jewish community to pay condolences to an Israeli man murdered last week in a Palestinian terror stabbing attack.

Klein stated:

Let’s go back to when Israel evacuated from Gush Katif, from the Jewish communities of the Gaza Strip. President Bush at the time sent a letter that was supposed to enshrine American policy in that letter stating that Israel would not be expected in the future to evacuate the entire West bank. To evacuate all Jewish communities from the West bank. Anyone who believes that Israel is going to uproot 200,000 or more Jews living in Judea and Samaria is delusional.

Indeed, in 2004, just prior to the Gaza evacuation, President Bush issued a declarative letter stating that it is unrealistic to expect that Israel will not retain some Jewish settlements in a final-status deal with the Palestinians.

The letter stated: