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Trump backs away from 'neutral' stance on Israel

Donald Trump caused quite the stir last month when he declared he could be the "neutral guy" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On Monday, he took it back.

“I would love to be neutral if it’s possible. It’s probably not possible because there’s so much hatred,” the Republican front-runner told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “There’s so much going on.”

The interview with CNN comes ahead of a foreign-policy speech Trump is due to give Monday evening at AIPAC’s policy conference in Washington, D.C., a major address for the Republican front-runner as he tries to convince the GOP to unify behind him.

Hillary Clinton earlier Monday hammered Trump for his previously stated neutral stance in her own address before the pro-Israel lobbying group. “Yes, we need steady hands, not a president who says he’s neutral on Monday, pro-Israel on Tuesday and who knows what on Wednesday because everything’s negotiable,” she said. “Well, my friends, Israel’s security is non-negotiable.”

The real-estate mogul said he agrees with Clinton's view on Israel's security but dismissed the former secretary of state’s criticism. “I agree with her on the last statement. It is non-negotiable,” Trump said. “And, frankly, she doesn’t know me, she doesn’t know my policy, she doesn’t know what I’m gonna be doing and she certainly doesn’t know what I’m going to be saying [later].”

Trump also knocked Clinton’s suggestion that he doesn’t have the steady hands necessary to be commander-in-chief, calling into question her own foreign-policy chops. “I have the steadiest hands. Look at those hands,” Trump said on CNN. “I have the steadiest hands and far steadier than hers. Look where she got us. Look at Libya. Look at the migration. Look at Benghazi.”

The New York billionaire added that he was “very pro-Israel,” touting the “many awards” he’s won from the Jewish state and noting his contributions to Israel as well.

“There’s nobody more pro-Israel than I am,” said Trump, emphasizing America’s need to protect the state.

Trump said he would love to reach a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine but maintained that the Palestinians would have to end terror. “They have to stop with the terror because what they’re doing with the missiles and with the stabbings and with all of the other things that they do, it’s horrible and it’s gotta end," he said.