Christie says he would not call for a ‘freeze’ in West Bank settlements amid escalating violence

GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie said Sunday he would not call for a “freeze” in West Bank settlements amid escalating violence in the region.

“No, I would not. No, Kristen, I would not call for a freeze,” he told NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press.” “I would not be dictating policy to the Israeli government.”

“But I would advise, as friends do, that that type of violence in the West Bank is a distraction from what needs to be done, which is to protect Israeli's territorial integrity, protect the safety and security of their citizens, and to make sure that Hamas' capability to commit this type of act again is degraded militarily,” he continued. 

Christie was the first GOP presidential candidate to visit Israel earlier this month since the onset of the war on Oct. 7 and has been opposed to calls for a cease-fire in the fighting.

The Israeli government revealed earlier this year that it had plans to reestablish settlements in the West Bank — a move that the U.S. said it was “extremely troubled” by at the time. This legislation in the Israeli Knesset rescinded parts of a nearly two-decade-old law that prohibited Israeli communities from being built on specific territory in the West Bank.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called for conditioning U.S. aid to Israel amid the ongoing violence on Saturday, including a freeze on settlement expansion in the West Bank and an end to bombing that has taken the lives of thousands of civilians. 

Settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has escalated since militant group Hamas launched a surprise deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,200 people. The U.S. has warned Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to rein in “extremist” settlers in the West Bank in the wake of reports of violence against Palestinians.