Peloni: Don’t miss the response from Amb. Friedman and Sec. Pompeo below the article
Secretary of State reverses policy set by predecessor Mike Pompeo, says Washington views the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria as “inconsistent with international law”.
Elad Benari | INN | Feb 23, 2024
Antony BlinkenREUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/Pool
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday reversed a policy set by the Trump administration, saying Washington views the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria as “inconsistent with international law”.
Speaking at a news conference during a trip to Buenos Aires, Blinken said the United States was disappointed by Israel’s announcement on Thursday of plans to approve new housing units in Judea and Samaria in response to the shooting attack near Maaleh Adumim.
Blinken said the new construction is counterproductive to reaching an enduring peace and then added, “They’re also inconsistent with international law. Our administration maintains a firm opposition to settlement expansion, and in our judgment this only weakens, doesn’t strengthen Israel’s security.”
Blinken thus effectively revoked the so-called “Pompeo Doctrine”, which deemed Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria “not per se inconsistent with international law.”
In 2019, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo implemented the policy, overturning a 1978 memo by State Department legal adviser Herbert Hansell, which characterized “settlements” as “illegal”.
Response from Amb. Friedman:
Blinken is 100% wrong. I researched this for over a year with many State Department lawyers. There is nothing illegal about Jews living in their biblical homeland. Indeed, Undersecretary of State Eugene Rostow, also the Dean of the Yale Law School (who negotiated UNSCR 242), stated that Israel has the best legal claim to Judea and Samaria. For Blinken to announce this in the middle of a war and when the Jewish Sabbath already has begun in Israel is unconscionable.
Response from Sec. Pompeo:
Judea and Samaria are rightful parts of the Jewish homeland, and Israelis have a right to live there. President Biden’s decision to overturn our policy and call Israeli ‘settlements’ illegal will not further the cause of peace. It rewards Hamas for its brutal attacks on October 7th and punishes Israel instead. These Israeli communities are not standing in the way of peace; militant Palestinian terrorism is.
Response from Richard Goldberg
The US stands up at ICJ and says it opposes any advisory opinion declaring Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria a violation of international law. The radical antisemitic left goes crazy. So now this. How embarrassing.
Please stop using the illegitimate words “settlements.” They are Jewish villages and towns.
FELIX /FRANK ADAM
How right you are….!!!
It has been and is common knowledge that the US spread it’s illegal tentacles over all of the Land Mass of the US by open conquest, broken treaties (exactly like the Arab terrorists) and biological warfare, (smallpoz spread), not to mention the totally unscrupulous methods of the US Govt (e.g Grant Administration)
No need to mention “Gung Ho” narcissistic lunatics like Custer.
I believe that the only legal eans it ever made to “acquire” Territory were the Louisians Purchase and the Alaska Putchase.
It would be so nice to ban Blinken from entering Israel for 5 years as the punishment for promoting anti-Israeli propaganda.
Frank Adam
I query it. I think that is exactly the place to start. Has anybody on Israpundit read up on this?
Somebody should query the legality of the US settlement of its territory?
The redskin tribes all considered themselves “nations” even if NOT states caapable resisting the conquests of the US.