Blinken overturns Trump policy, says settlements ‘inconsistent with international law’
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken overturns policy set by the previous administration, saying Washington views settlements as “inconsistent with international law,” following an Israeli announcement that it plans to build 3,000 new housing units in settlements in the West Bank.
Blinken thus effectively revokes the so-called Pompeo Doctrine, which deemed settlements “not per se inconsistent with international law.” The 2019 policy implemented by then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo overturned a 1978 memo by State Department legal adviser Herbert Hansell, which characterized settlements as illegal.
The Biden administration had so far avoided contradicting that position.
“New settlements are counterproductive to reaching an enduring peace,” Blinken says during a news conference in Buenos Aires.
“They’re also inconsistent with international law. Our administration maintains a firm opposition to settlement expansion. In our judgement this only weakens, it doesn’t strengthen, Israel’s security.”
Announcing the plans for new settlement building Thursday, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called the decision “an appropriate Zionist response” to a shooting attack in the West Bank that day.
Settlements are viewed by much of the international community as illegal under international law and a major impediment to an eventual two-state solution, which envisions a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
שר החוץ האמריקני בלינקן: ארה"ב מאוכזבת מהחלטת ישראל לאשר בנייה בהתנחלויות – בניגוד לחוק הבינלאומי@itamargalit pic.twitter.com/jvstnlWIC7
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) February 23, 2024
