Editor's note: For more from this interview click here.

In February, the Israeli Knesset passed a law retroactively legalising thousands of settler homes in the West Bank, and in March, Israel approved the construction of its first new settlement in decades.

Is Israel really heeding the call US President Donald Trump made to "hold off" on settlement building in order to advance the peace process?

"Our cabinet already made the decision to listen to the president and to formulate a new policy of ... restraint," says Israel's consul general in New York, Dani Dayan. "That doesn't mean that we agree with the rationale of that request.

"The whole issue of settlements is so overblown, so overrated ... the basic problem is whether the Palestinians recognise Israel's right to exist."

In this week's Headliner, Dani Dayan - who himself was a former settler leader - defends his country's policy on settlements in the occupied West Bank.

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Source: Al Jazeera News