Trump’s nominee for Pentagon chief suggested new temple could be built on Temple Mount

President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense Pete Hegseth suggested that a temple could be re-established on the Temple Mount in a resurfaced speech he gave in 2018 at the Arutz Sheva conference in Jerusalem.

“There’s no reason why the miracle of the re-establishment of the temple on the Temple Mount is not possible,” Hegseth said.

“I don’t know how it would happen. You don’t know how it would happen, but I know that it could happen,” he added.

Hegseth also appeared to endorse annexing Israeli settlements, an effort backers of the effort often describe as “applying Israeli sovereignty to Judea and Samaria,” using the biblical names for the West Bank.

“A step in that process, a step in every process, is a recognition that facts and activities on the ground truly matter,” he said.

“That’s why going and visiting Judea and Samaria and understanding that sovereignty — the very sovereignty of Israeli soil, Israeli cities, locations — is a critical next step to showing the world that this is the land for Jews and the Land of Israel,” Hegseth added

He also rejected the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying that “If you walk the ground today, you understand that there is no such as the outcome of a two-state solution. There is one state.”