Donald Trump receives a standing ovation while speaking at an AIPAC conference Monday.Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
The United States will move its embassy to Jerusalem, "the eternal capital of the Jewish people," Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner in the race to replace President Barack Obama vowed Monday in a rousing speech to an influential pro-Israeli lobby group.
It was Mr. Trump's first extended foray into the minefield of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and he won huge cheers from nearly 18,000 attendees at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Jerusalem, regarded as a holy city by three great religions, is also considered the capital of nascent Palestine and – for decades – U.S. presidents from both parties have kept the embassy in Tel Aviv. Presidential hopefuls routinely promise to move it.
Mr. Trump stuck mostly to his prepared text but detoured to savage Mr. Obama for failing to understand how to make deals.
"You see, what President Obama gets wrong about deal-making is that he constantly applies pressure to our friends and rewards our enemies," Mr. Trump said. "That pattern has been practised by the President and his administration, including former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, who is a total disaster, by the way."
This won him a standing ovation. So did his pledge to end the chilly relations with Israel – Mr. Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have repeatedly snubbed each other.
"When I become President, the days of treating Israel like a second-class citizen will end on Day One," Mr. Trump said. "I will meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu immediately. I have known him for many years."
Outside the packed Verizon Center – where the Washington Capitals play – thousands of AIPAC attendees streamed past dozens of protesters loudly denouncing both Mr. Trump and Israel.
"Dump Trump," they chanted, alternating with "Stop the violence, stop the hate – Israel is an apartheid state."
Mr. Trump boasted that as a proven deal-maker, he was better placed to broker peace than conventional politicians. He also said he knew what to do with a bad deal.
"I didn't come here to pander to you about Israel, that's what politicians do," said the sometime TV reality-show star who has upended American politics.
"My No. 1 priority is to dismantle the disastrous" nuclear pact with Iran, he said of the deal widely seen as Mr. Obama's crowning foreign-policy achievement. "This deal is catastrophic, for America, for Israel, for all of the Middle East. I've studied this deal in great detail, probably greater than anybody else. … It's a bad deal."
Mr. Trump's two remaining Republican rivals, Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich, also spoke to AIPAC.
Both took swipes at Mr. Trump, whose attacks on women, Muslims, Mexicans and anyone who dares challenge him have stirred accusations that he is deliberately appealing to racist and xenophobic undertones in American society.
"I will not take the low road to the highest office in the land, I will not do it," Mr. Kasich said, in a not-so-veiled reference to Mr. Trump.
Earlier, Mr. Trump warned Republican establishment figures – many of them aghast at the prospect of the businessman winning the party's nomination and fearful that it would deliver the presidency to the Democrats for a third straight term – against backing a conservative third-party candidate.
Last year, the Republican National Committee pressured Mr. Trump to sign a loyalty oath, pledging he wouldn't run as an independent. But that was long before the New York property magnate tapped deep veins of bitter frustration among the Republican rank-and-file and surged to front-runner status.
On Monday, as senior Republicans openly manoeuvred to thwart Mr. Trump, he warned that a third-party scheme to outflank him would backfire. "You can't be that spiteful because you would destroy the country," he said. Speaking at a news conference in a new Trump hotel not far from the Capitol, he told the Republican establishment "they should embrace this movement. … If they don't want to be smart, they should do what they're doing now and the Republicans are going to go down to a massive loss."
Mr. Trump's address to AIPAC followed one earlier in the day by Ms. Clinton, the Democratic Party front-runner who lampooned her likely opponent.
"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 negotiable," said Ms. Clinton, referring to Mr. Trump's statement earlier this month that he would be neutral on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
To blunt continued attacks, both from Democrats and Republicans that he lacks the foreign-policy experience to be president, Mr. Trump also named some members of his advisory team on Monday. According to the Washington Post, reporting after an on-the-record editorial board meeting with Mr. Trump, the advisers include: terrorism expert Walid Phares; energy industry executive Carter Page: international energy lawyer George Papadopoulos; former Pentagon inspector general Joe Schmitz; and former Army Lieutenant-General Keith Kellogg. None are well-known.
Last week, Mr. Trump had said he was his own best adviser. "I'm speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain," he said, when asked the names of his key advisers. "My primary consultant is myself," he said.