US reversal on W. Bank
Settlements now ‘legal’
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday that the United Statestates would soften its posi-osition on Israeli settle-ements in the occupied West Bank.
In a reversal of US policy, Pompeo said President Trump would no longer abide by a 1978 US State Department legal opinion that found the settlements “inconsistent with international law.”
“Calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with international law has not advanced the cause of peace,” Pompeo said at the State Department.
“The hard truth iss that there will never be a judicial resolution to the conflict, and arguments about who is right and who is wrong as a matter of international law will not bring peace.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdeneh, condemned the announcement and said settlements were illegal under international law.
“The US administration has lost its credibility to play any future role in the peace process,” Abu Rdeneh said.
The move would likely be welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it could spell trouble for the Trump administration’s promised Middle East peace plan and was unlikely to gather much international support.
Pompeo’s remarks were the third major instance in which Team Trump had sided with Israel, a staunch US ally, and against stances taken by the Palestinians and Arab states.
In 2017, Trump recognized Je
rusalem as the Israeli capital, and in 2018 the US formally opened an embassy iin that city.
And in March, Trump recognized Israel’s 1981 annexation of the Golan Heights in a boost for Netanyahu that prompted a sharp response from Syria, which once held the region.
Pompeo said that the US would not take a position on the legality of specific settlements and that the new policy would not extend beyond the West Bank and would not set a precedent for other territorial disputes.
He also said the decision did not mean the administration was prejudging the status of the West Bank in any eventual Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.
The US move could help Netanyahu as he struggles to stay in power. The Israeli government is deadlocked after two inconclusive elections this year.
Former military chief Benny Gantz’s centrist Blue and White party emerged neck and neck with Netanyahu following a September vote, and both leaders have struggled to put together a ruling coalition.