Palestinians slam US policy reversal on israeli settlements

Palestinians, l ii rights ih groups, politicians li i i and d others on Monday slammed the Trump administration after it announced the United States was no longer considered Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank “inconsistent” with international law. “After carefully studying all sides of the legal debate, this administration agrees ... (the) establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday when making the announcement.

He said the administration of US President Donald Trump would no longer abide by a 1978 State Department legal opinion that said the settlements were “inconsistent with international law”. According to several United Nations Security Council resolutions, the most recent in 2016, Israeli settlements are illegal under international law as they violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its population to the area it occupies. The US announcement, the latest in a series of moves by the Trump administration favouring Israel, drew immediate criticism from Palestinians, rights groups and politicians worldwide. A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the US decision “contradicts totally with international law”.

Washington is “not qualified or authorised to cancel the resolutions of international law, and has no right to grant legality to any Israeli settlement,” Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeinah said in a statement. Hanan Ashrawi, a veteran Palestinian negotiator and member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee, said on Twitter before Pompeo’s statement, that the move represented another blow to “international law, justice & peace”. Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, warned that the US change of position would have “dangerous consequences” on the prospects of reviving the Middle East peace process. Safadi said in a tweet that Israeli settlements in the territory were illegal and killed prospects of a two-state solution in which a Palestinian state would exist sideby-side with Israel, which Arab countries say is the only way to resolve the decadesold Arab-Israeli conflict. Noura Erakat, a Palestinian human rights lawyer, tweeted: “Pompeo’s settlement announcement is consistent w 5 decades of US Mideast Police. Making it about Trump is self-exculpatory and a continuation of violence. Trump is not the rupture, he’s the culmination of US policy.” Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian American lawyer and rights activist, said the announcement was “not surprising”. “Trump administration once again shows its complete disdain for the law,” she tweeted. “Sec. Pompeo, what has ‘not advanced the cause of peace’ is Israel’s building of illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land, NOT calling out the settlements for what they are. #Justice101,” she added. Meanwhile, the European Union said that it continued to believe that Israeli settlement activity in occupied Palestinian territory was illegal under international law and eroded prospects for lasting peace. “The EU calls on Israel to end all settlement activity, in line with its obligations as an occupying power,” EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement following the US move.