President Trump’s extraordinary gesture of support for Israel and the rights of the Jewish people was evident in the historic statement. The US has rightly concluded that falsely calling settlements illegal is not helpful for peace.
Caroline B. Glick, ISRAEL HAYOM
Monday will long be remembered as a turning point in Middle East history. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement Monday that Israeli settlements are not illegal per se is the most significant shift in US Middle East policy in the past generation. Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital has been a matter of US law since 1996.
There was little interest in Washington in recent years in pressuring Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights. But the issue of the legality of Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), has been the defining issue of much of the international discourse on Israel for a generation.
In the vast majority of cases, the discourse has revolved around the widely held allegation – with no basis in actual law – that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria are illegal.
This allegation has served as the justification for a continuous barrage of condemnations of Israel in the international arena and for anti-Israel legal verdicts in international courts including the International Court of Justice at the Hague in 2004 and the European Court of Justice last week.
The unsupported allegation that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria are illegal was also the basis for UN Security Council Resolution 2334 from 2016 and is a basis of the International Criminal Court’s ongoing probes of Israelis.
Pompeo made two revolutionary assertions in his statement. First, he said that “after carefully studying all sides of the legal debate,” like the Reagan administration before it, the Trump administration has concluded, “The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law.”
Second, Pompeo noted, the near ubiquitousness of the false assertion that settlements are illegal has not advanced the prospects for peace. To the contrary, it has harmed the chances of getting to peace.
In his words, “calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with international law has not advanced the cause of peace.”
And of course, it hasn’t. Placing a lie in the center of the discourse on the Palestinian conflict with Israel is no way to promote understanding and coexistence.
In the interest of promoting peace, Pompeo instead told the truth. Not only are Israeli settlements not illegal. Pompeo noted that they are arguably more justified than civilian settlements built in other disputed territories.
In his words, the administration’s determination “is based on the unique facts, history, and circumstances presented by the establishment of civilian settlements in the West Bank.” That is, it is based on the historic ties of the Jewish people to Judea and Samaria. These ties lay at the heart of Jewish history and religion.
Finally, Pompeo said that the legal status of the settlements is itself irrelevant to prospects for peace. As he put it, “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. This is a complex political problem that can only be solved by negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.”
Pompeo’s statement, and indeed the Trump administration’s decision to publish its position now represents a complete rebuke of the European Union. The EU has made its false determination that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria are illegal the basis for its hostile, discriminatory economic and political policies towards Israel. The European Court of Justice’s verdict last week which requires EU member states to place distinct labels on Jewish-made exports from Judea, Samaria, united Jerusalem and the Golan Heights is self-evidently a bid to use a deliberate misinterpretation of international law to implement an anti-Semitic policy.
Israel’s own Foreign Ministry should take a lesson from the Trump administration. After a bitter, 2-year bureaucratic and political fight, in 2017 Israel’s embassies worldwide published a paper that explained the legal validity of Israel’s settlements in Judea and Samaria. But unlike the Trump administration, the Israeli government has still not stated outright that international law is irrelevant to the cause of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Pompeo’s statement is first and foremost an extraordinary gesture of support for Israel and the rights of the Jewish people on the part of President Donald Trump and his administration. But from a U.S. perspective, it also represents a key advance in Trump’s realist foreign policy.
Since taking office, Trump has worked consistently to align U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and beyond to the world as it is, rather than to the world as “experts” imagine it to be. In the Middle East, this realignment of U.S. policy has provided the nations of the region – including Israel and the Palestinians – with the first chance of reaching genuine peace they have ever had.
This should pass as Blue/White also has this in their platform. Hopefully this gets more than 80 votes! https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Netanyahu-approves-Jordan-Valley-annexation-bill-after-US-changes-policy-608333
While I hold it in perspective, therefore positive, I am not overly enamoured by the position of Pompeo,
“Pompeo noted that they are arguably more justified than civilian settlements built in other disputed territories.”
The leadership I seek on this issue is going to reject the term “disputed”. as far as we will be concerned there is nothing disputed.
As I said before the Paris Peace Conference was all about All of Palestine.
then the Brits under Churchill pulled a fast one and split it about 80 to 20 with the Jews getting the 20 and the Arabs the 80, that is per cent.
Then the 20 was sniped away at.
the only dispute is what the hell is going on here.
Pompeo noted that they are arguably more justified than civilian settlements built in other disputed territories.
Pompeo is playing into THAT deception. If he does not understand and has not read up on the history his words are deceit IN THE LONG RUN.
ted belman Reagan said “illegitimate” but you have often lauded the right.
I agree this is important but not a turning point.
The turning point involves solving the issue as Martin Sherman proposes
@ David melech:
That kind of low level reply makes me despair. You really seem to be the shallowest of shallow characters.
Time for a Trump Towers in J-S. Except no beach property in that area.
Carter claimed the settlements were illegal. Reagan wouldn’t go that far and would only say they were “illegitimate” whatever that meant. He also claimed that they were an “obstacle to peace”.
The rest of the world kept repeating the mantra that they were illegal without any foundation in law.
And now Trump says they are not illegal and not an obstacle to peace.