The Kulanu party held its weekly faction meeting at the Menahem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem Monday.
Kulanu head Moshe Kahlon referred in his faction's meeting to the forthcoming meeting between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Donald Trump, and described it as one of the "most important, if no the most important meetings in the present term [of Netanyahu]. "
Kahlon said that " we have presented the detailed outlook of Kulanu with regard to security, foreign policy and economics. Besides coordinating security and foreign policy issues [with the Palestinians] we suggested initiating confidence-building steps in their economy. We asked to coordinate policies on matters of employment, health and education and not just on security matters. We believe that economic cooperation can build trust and both sides need this," said Kahlon.
Kahlon expressed his support for the Prime Minister's latest moves. "We see the Trump administration as a great opportunity to promote significant peace initiatives. There is a friendly administration in the US and we must utilize this. But lets not forget that opportunities can be wasted. We have to be well balanced, with a minimum amount of bombastic declarations and slogans and let the Prime Minister work. We need to tread carefully and allow the US president to help us and not try to tie the Prime Minister's hands with all sorts of declarations.
Kahlon added that "Israel needs to adopt its policies independently, we are responsible for our own security. The connection to the US is particularly important regarding security, peace and economics. President Trump spoke of preventing foreign investments in the US and this concerns us. I asked the Prime Minister to gain us an exclusion from this since there are many US investors in Israel, we need this for our economy and its important for us."
He related that he had agreed with Netanyahu to coordinate moves which would strengthen economic cooperation between Israel and the Palestinians. "We will do this together with the US, in order to strengthen our economy and theirs and protect Israel's security.
"This is the time to put politics aside, to place Israel's interests above all and to wish the Prime Minister success in his meeting with the president of the US. The Prime Minister's success is that of all of us," concluded Kahlon.