Pompeo visits Israeli-occupied West Bank and Golan Heights

[webfact]

Pompeo visits Israeli-occupied West Bank and Golan Heights

By Rami Amichay and Ali Sawafta

 

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo takes part in a security briefing on Mount Bental in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights November 19, 2020. Patrick Semansky/Pool via REUTERS

 

SHAAR BINYAMIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Mike Pompeo on Thursday became the first U.S. secretary of state to visit an Israeli West Bank settlement and the Golan Heights, in a show of solidarity that led Palestinians to accuse him of helping to cement Israeli control over occupied territory.

 

Pompeo's trips came during the Israeli leg of what may be his last tour of the Middle East in the final months of President Donald Trump's administration.

 

Trump delighted Israel in 2019 by recognising Israel's claim to sovereignty over the area of the Golan Heights that it captured from Syria in a 1967 war and later annexed, in a move that was not recognised by most of the international community.

 

Last year, Pompeo, an evangelical Christian, broke with decades of U.S. foreign policy to announce that the United States under Trump no longer viewed Israel's settlements in the West Bank as "inconsistent with international law".

 

These and other decisions were greeted with dismay by the Palestinians, who boycotted the Trump White House for nearly three years, accusing it of consistent pro-Israel bias.

 

The Palestinians have indicated they would resume relations as normal with Washington once President-elect Joe Biden takes office, widely seen as a gesture of goodwill towards his future administration.

 

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he would visit the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Thursday, marking the Trump administration's break with previous U.S. policy on the strategic plateau.

 

However it is unclear how many of Trump’s decisions will be reversed by a Biden administration.

 

On Thursday morning Pompeo appeared alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said both Pompeo and Trump were long-standing friends of Israel.

 

Pompeo said the two leaders discussed Iran, the perceived threat of which has shifted political fault lines in the region, uniting Israel and Gulf Arab states in fear of Tehran.

 

He also issued guidelines for Israeli products made in settlements to be labelled "Made in Israel" or "Product of Israel" when exported to the United States, removing the distinction between goods made within Israel and those produced in occupied territory.

 

WEST BANK

But first Pompeo travelled the short distance from Jerusalem to the Israeli-occupied West Bank - known to most Israelis as Judea and Samaria - where more than 440,000 Jewish settlers live uneasily among three million Palestinians, mostly in fortified hilltop settlements.

 

He dined at Shaar Binyamin, an Israeli industrial zone just north of Jerusalem where Psagot winery - taking its name from a nearby settlement - has a blend named after him.

 

"Enjoyed lunch at the scenic Psagot Winery today. Unfortunately, Psagot and other businesses have been targeted by pernicious EU (European Union) labeling efforts that facilitate the boycott of Israeli companies. The U.S. stands with Israel and will not tolerate any form of delegitimization," Pompeo wrote on Twitter.

 

Under EU guidelines farm and other products made in Israeli settlements and exported to EU member countries should be clearly labeled as coming from the settlements, which the bloc considers illegal under international law.

 

Pompeo's visit departed from past policy that had kept top U.S. officials away from settlements, which Palestinians view as obstacles to a viable future state.

 

Palestinians in the area say that the Psagot winery was built in part on Palestinian land near the cities of Ramallah and Al-Bireh.

 

"This land has been handed down from generation to generation to its Palestinian owners," Musa Jwayyed, a Palestinian-American who sits on Al-Bireh's city council.

 

"I am a U.S. citizen, a taxpayer, educated, loyal, ok? Why do these settlers have more rights than I do?"

 

GOLAN HEIGHTS

Pompeo later flew to the Golan Heights, a mountainous and strategic plateau that overlooks Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

 

"I very much wanted to come here on this trip to tell the world that we have it right. That we, the United States has it right. That Israel has it right," Pompeo said from a hilltop looking into an area of the Syrian Golan that was until recently controlled by militias fighting the Syrian civil war.

 

"Each nation has the right to defend itself in its own sovereignty," he said.

 

Such signs of support left many Israelis backing Trump's bid for re-election.

 

But Palestinian negotiator Hanan Ashrawi accused Pompeo of using Trump's final weeks in office "to set yet another illegal precedent, violate international law and perhaps to advance his own future political ambitions".

 

(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Maayan Lubell, Dan Williams and Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Rami Ayyub in Bethlehem; Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Dedi Hayun in the Golan Heights, Editing by Stephen Farrell, Timothy Heritage, Giles Elgood, William Maclean)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-11-20

 

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[4reaL]

Quote

 Israeli-occupied Golan Heights

 

 

What a horrible biased article.

 

[PatOngo]

I wonder did it occur to him that the Israeli's are encroaching on Palestinian land? ???? Obviously that is condoned by the Trump administration!

 

14 minutes ago, webfact said:

"This land has been handed down from generation to generation to its Palestinian owners,"

 

[simple1]

16 minutes ago, 4reaL said:

 

 

What a horrible biased article.

 

 

Nothing 'horrible', it's factual reporting. With the exception of the US, Golan Heights are recognised by the international community as Syrian territory. 

[ezzra]

40 minutes ago, simple1 said:

 

Nothing 'horrible', it's factual reporting. With the exception of the US, Golan Heights are recognised by the international community as Syrian territory. 

These are the results of when you start  wars with your neighbour you can't finish... and let's us not start with how many countries are occupying lands and territories that not belong to them and Israel occupying the Golan heights will dwarf in comparison, like China Russia Turkey and others...

[simple1]

3 minutes ago, ezzra said:

These are the results of when you start  wars with your neighbour you can't finish... and let's us not start with how many countries are occupying lands and territories that not belong to them and Israel occupying the Golan heights will dwarf in comparison, like China Russia Turkey and others...

 

Don't know why you bothered to post the above - doesn't change the facts of the situation

[PatOngo]

45 minutes ago, ezzra said:

These are the results of when you start  wars with your neighbour you can't finish. 

 

Ahh, not all countries get the biased support of the USA either!

[Chomper Higgot]

1 hour ago, ezzra said:

These are the results of when you start  wars with your neighbour you can't finish... and let's us not start with how many countries are occupying lands and territories that not belong to them and Israel occupying the Golan heights will dwarf in comparison, like China Russia Turkey and others...

How Israel came to occupy Syrian territory does not negate the internationally recognized fact that it is Syrian territory.

 

‘China, Russia, Turkey and others...’ are examples of the whataboutary you are so fond of using.

[Emdog]

Pompy is on his "Hell is thawing out: goodbye tour" all on taxpayer's dime.

Going to Israel and stirring things up even further serves no useful purpose for the interests of USA, but it sure as heck does for interests of Trump and company.

His goal is to leave as much of USA government and interests a smoldering wreck to hobble new administration as much as he can. Maybe he can bookend his inauguration speech with update "The carnage starts now!" (been going on for 4 years, but you get the idea)

[dexterm]

4 hours ago, ezzra said:

These are the results of when you start  wars with your neighbour you can't finish... and let's us not start with how many countries are occupying lands and territories that not belong to them and Israel occupying the Golan heights will dwarf in comparison, like China Russia Turkey and others...

But it ain't finished yet. 72 years after foundation Israel still does not have permanent peace with all its neighbors, and is still without internationally recognized eastern borders...they seem to keep moving.

Trump and Pompeo are on their own in recognizing any annexation.

[dexterm]

Pompeo is trying to boost his extremist credentials for a 2024 Presidential bid. Trump will be 78 by then...and Trump tells us that is far too old!????

Pompeo is legitimizing land theft in exchange for a bottle of illegal settlement booze named after him. Makes a change from attempted election theft I suppose.

 

The first job for the new administration: restore the nuclear treaty with Iran. It was working. Trump's reneging on the agreement left Iran closer to a nuclear weapon than when Obama left office.

 

Secondly, create détente in the Middle East, to take the wind out of the sails of the extremists on all sides. I hope the progressive Democratic elements can push Biden to move towards a comprehensive peace in the region kicking off with a serious Israeli Palestinian summit conference and tossing Trump and Kushner's non starter apartheid Steal of the Century into the trashcan of history. That could be the catalyst for change. Bernie Sanders in Biden's cabinet would be a positive.

 

There's a Nobel Peace Prize up for grabs for Joe and Kamala. That would be a slap in the face for Trump, Pompeo and their far right evangelical nutjob base. Sorry, Armageddon has been postponed. There's peace in the region now.

 

I hope they don't waste the next 4 years' opportunity, as Obama did, by mouthing the old platitudes about "strong disapproval" of settlement expansion, "not conducive to peace blah blah", while turning a blind eye to Israel's illegal occupation and abuse of Palestinian human rights.

 

Meanwhile, the indigenous Palestinians outnumber and outbreed Israeli Jews within Palestine and they ain't going away, however much Pompeo, Trump and Netanyahu fantasize about their alternative reality.

[ezzra]

2 minutes ago, dexterm said:

But it ain't finished yet. 72 years after foundation Israel still does not have permanent peace with all its neighbors, and is still without internationally recognized eastern borders...they seem to keep moving.

Trump and Pompeo are on their own in recognizing any annexation.

We live in hope and pray that more countries will see the light as did other Arab countries and make peace by realising that so far wars and hostilities got them nowhere and peace, corporations and the economy are much more important than picking up a gun...

[dexterm]

10 minutes ago, ezzra said:

We live in hope and pray that more countries will see the light as did other Arab countries and make peace by realising that so far wars and hostilities got them nowhere and peace, corporations and the economy are much more important than picking up a gun...

>>make peace by realising that so far wars and hostilities got them nowhere and peace, corporations and the economy are much more important than picking up a gun...

..That goes for Israel too. Peace based on roughly 67 borders, shared capital Jerusalem, and recognition/compensation for Jewish and Palestinian refugees would bring global recognition. 
Israel and Palestine could be one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in the world, a financial, cultural, historical hub for the entire Middle East and a beacon for peace and reconciliation for the whole world.

[Thorgal]

32 minutes ago, ezzra said:

We live in hope and pray that more countries will see the light as did other Arab countries and make peace by realising that so far wars and hostilities got them nowhere and peace, corporations and the economy are much more important than picking up a gun...

 

These “other Arab countries” you’re talking about had to allow Israel to use its air space and allow Israeli air planes to use the airfields in those countries that signed the “Peace Deal of the Century”.

 

Just a strategic move to prepare to attack Iran with proxy logistics under the umbrella of a peace deal.

 

Pompeo is also poring water into the Israeli wine...

[Traubert]

Pompeo is toxic, as is most of their foregn policy.

[Somtamnication]

One day they will go back to their non occupied homes. Good riddance!

[pegman]

4 hours ago, dexterm said:

Pompeo is trying to boost his extremist credentials for a 2024 Presidential bid. Trump will be 78 by then...and Trump tells us that is far too old!????

Pompeo is legitimizing land theft in exchange for a bottle of illegal settlement booze named after him. Makes a change from attempted election theft I suppose.

 

The first job for the new administration: restore the nuclear treaty with Iran. It was working. Trump's reneging on the agreement left Iran closer to a nuclear weapon than when Obama left office.

 

Secondly, create détente in the Middle East, to take the wind out of the sails of the extremists on all sides. I hope the progressive Democratic elements can push Biden to move towards a comprehensive peace in the region kicking off with a serious Israeli Palestinian summit conference and tossing Trump and Kushner's non starter apartheid Steal of the Century into the trashcan of history. That could be the catalyst for change. Bernie Sanders in Biden's cabinet would be a positive.

 

There's a Nobel Peace Prize up for grabs for Joe and Kamala. That would be a slap in the face for Trump, Pompeo and their far right evangelical nutjob base. Sorry, Armageddon has been postponed. There's peace in the region now.

 

I hope they don't waste the next 4 years' opportunity, as Obama did, by mouthing the old platitudes about "strong disapproval" of settlement expansion, "not conducive to peace blah blah", while turning a blind eye to Israel's illegal occupation and abuse of Palestinian human rights.

 

Meanwhile, the indigenous Palestinians outnumber and outbreed Israeli Jews within Palestine and they ain't going away, however much Pompeo, Trump and Netanyahu fantasize about their alternative reality.

That would be nice but unfortunately the Israel lobby owns both sides of the political aisle on capital hill.

[J Town]

If the choices are between Pompeo running a 2024 presidential run and a snowball in hell, smart money's on the snowball.

[Mayhem11]

Thai Visa shut this thread down.

[Sujo]

A soon to be ex sec of state having an inconsequential tax payer holiday. 

[Jingthing]

19 minutes ago, Sujo said:

A soon to be ex sec of state having an inconsequential tax payer holiday. 

Yes, a D list secretary of state at best. 

 

https://asiatimes.com/2020/10/pompeos-record-a-litany-of-failure/

[Jingthing]

9 hours ago, pegman said:

That would be nice but unfortunately the Israel lobby owns both sides of the political aisle on capital hill.

That's a loaded statement.

Would you say that the UK lobby owns both sides ...?

No you wouldn't. 

What's really happening is that Israel (like the U.K.) is a very close ally of the U.S. and those alliances enjoy very strong bipartisan support.

Edited November 20, 2020 by Jingthing