Mike Pompeo breaks travel hiatus for hourslong visit to Israel
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, visited Israel amid the coronavirus pandemic in an attempt to gauge the new government’s commitment to a US-backed plan to annex large parts of the Palestinian territories.
The single-stop trip – Pompeo’s first in nearly two months – lasted just a few hours, with a small US team afforded exemptions from strict Israeli coronavirus restrictions that require any arrivals to self-isolate for two weeks.
Pompeo stepped off the plane wearing a striped face mask in the colours of the US flag. He travelled to Jerusalem to speak with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Benny Gantz, the former head of the opposition who will soon join Netanyahu in a unity government.
Washington has been coy around why such a visit was necessary, announcing the trip in a one-paragraph statement that gave no hint of any urgent agenda. It said the men would discuss “US and Israeli efforts to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as regional security issues related to Iran’s malign influence”.
The trip was also seen as an attempt by the US to convince its ally of what Pompeo has described as the “risks” of doing business with China.
However, in an interview with a local newspaper, Israel Hayom, Pompeo said he wanted to update Netanyahu and Gantz “face to face” on Donald Trump’s “Vision for Peace”, the blueprint document for annexation.
The US plan, preemptively rejected by Palestinian leaders who refuse to negotiate under its terms, gives Israel full military control over Palestinians, much of their land and all of Jerusalem and Israeli settlements. Washington has said Israel can implement parts of the plan without involvement from the Palestinians.
“It is a pretty detailed and realistic and implementable concept and I wanted to share with them some of the work that we are continuing to do on that,” Pompeo said.
Daniel Shapiro, a former US ambassador to Israel, said the hurry around Pompeo’s “high-speed mid-pandemic” trip was to coordinate the annexation, which he said Trump sees as an electoral boon if it can be pulled off before the US election in November.
“For Trump’s evangelical and rightwing Jewish base, Israeli annexation – and the last rites it will administer to the dying two-state solution – is wildly popular,” Shapiro wrote in Haaretz.
The visit took place as potential obstacles grow, with reports that EU countries including France, Ireland and Belgium are considering threatening punitive economic measures if Israel breaks international law by unilaterally claiming sovereignty over land it occupies.
EU foreign ministers are meeting on Friday and Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, said annexation would be the “most important” issue on the agenda. He added, however, that unanimity was needed to impose sanctions and the subject was divisive among member states.
Washington may also be unsure if Netanyahu himself is committed to the plan. Israel’s longest-serving leader has been accused domestically by rightwingers of dangling the promise of annexation to win elections but preferring to keep the status quo of endless occupation rather than risk the potential diplomatic fallout.
Still, the unity government agreement that Netanyahu signed with Gantz allows the prime minister to introduce an annexation proposal to cabinet for discussion after 1 July. That can take place even with objections from Gantz, who also supports the occupation but is considered within Israel as more of a centrist.
Speaking next to Netanyahu on Wednesday ahead of their three-hour meeting, Pompeo said there was work to be done on Trump’s plan. He said: “[W]e need to make progress on that.”