Just days after his upset victory in the US presidential election, Donald Trump affirmed that his time in the White House will be marked a new closeness in US-Israel relations.

“I love and respect Israel and its citizens,” Trump wrote in a statement to daily commuter paper Israel Hayom, which is owned by one of Trump’s biggest campaign backers, Jewish-American billionaire Sheldon Adelson.

The US president-elect continued: “I look forward to strengthening the unbreakable bond between our two great peoples. I know well that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and that it is the only one that defends human rights, and that it is a ray of hope for many people.”

As for the peace process, Trump, like his official campaign platform, refused to commit to the two-state solution, instead insisting that the two sides must negotiate a mutually-agreeable solution.

“I believe that my administration will be able to fill an important role in aiding the two sides to reach a just and lasting peace, one which must come through negotiations between the two sides themselves, and not through coercion by outside elements,” he said. “Israel and the Jewish people deserve it.”