In yet another move by the Trump Administration to dispose of international law, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reiterated his instructions from Tel Aviv, announcing that US will abandon its long-standing officially recognized position which had condemned Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Pompeo said that the US will no longer view Israeli settlements as ‘inconsistent with international law’.
This was a reversal of decades of policy set in line with international law regarding land theft and the brutal subjugation of the native Palestine population by European Jewish settlers backed by the IDF.
Naturally, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu applauded the move, as he prepares to annex what remains of the Palestinian land and the culmination of 70 years of Israeli ethnic cleansing of the native Arab population.
In disingenuous fashion, Pompeo then claimed that the legal status of the West Bank was something for ‘Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate between themselves.’
The US announcement was an official reversal of previous Administrations, and in particular the policy championed by Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.
Pompeo is claiming that the decision – which effectively hands Israel as much Palestinian land and homes as they are able to take – is a result of a “legal review” although he offered no details of this review, and thus it’s unlikely any serious legal review actually took place, and that this disturbing decree was merely rubber stamped by the White House on behalf of the Israeli Lobby.
“After carefully studying all sides of the legal debate ….. the United States has concluded that “the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law,” said Pompeo.
Pompeo went on to use inverted logic by exonerating Israel for its long-running ethnic cleansing and land theft campaigns. “Calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with international law hasn’t worked. It hasn’t advanced the cause of peace,” he added.
Certainly, this move gives Israel new license to steal what remains of Palestinian land, which is sure to inflame tensions and ultimately undermine peace efforts – which are already at an all-time low.
The US announcement will also place Washington even further at odds with virtually the entire international community which overwhelmingly supports the rule of law and the right of Palestinians to exist.
It may not be reported in US news media, but the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia has issued a report accusing Israel of an apartheid policy through “strategic fragmentation of the Palestinian people” and discriminatory and practices. https://t.co/OArvsBVVMm
— Gareth Porter (@GarethPorter) November 19, 2019
Aside from undermining 70 years of United Nations rulings and resolutions, this latest US move will also be the death-blow to the illusive “Two State Solution” which many of its critics believe has always been a ploy orchestrated between Washington and Tel Aviv in order to buy time so Israel could move in some 750,000 new illegal ‘settlers’ in their grand effort to create new ‘facts on the ground’ in advance of what we are seeing today.
However, anyone actually familiar with the reality of the situation on the ground knows that Palestinians have been kept in what is effectively the world’s largest-ever open air prison, where Jewish settlers are free to move, live, shop, vote and enter Israeli sectors, while the native West Bank Palestinians are subject to a brutal Israeli military occupation, no rights under the current apartheid regime, and are made to carry “a permit” just to enter into “Israel”.
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