©Reuters. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken attends a joint news conference with Argentine Foreign Minister Diana Mondino, at the Casa Rosada Presidential Palace, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, February 23, 2024. REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian
By Simon Lewis and Humeyra Pamuk
(Reuters) – The Biden administration said on Friday that Israel’s settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank is inconsistent with international law, signaling a return to long-standing U.S. policy on the issue, which had been reversed by previous administration of Donald Trump.
Speaking at a news conference during a trip to Buenos Aires, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States is “disappointed” by Israel’s announcement of plans to build new homes in the occupied West Bank, saying they are counterproductive to achieve lasting peace. .
“They are also inconsistent with international law. Our administration maintains steadfast opposition to settlement expansion, and in our view this only weakens, not strengthens, Israel’s security,” Blinken said.
In November 2019, Trump’s then-Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, announced that Washington no longer considered Israeli settlements on West Bank territory captured in the 1967 Middle East war as “incompatible with international law,” a reversal of four decades of US politics.
Months later, in January 2020, the Trump administration announced a peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which was embraced by Israel and rejected by the Palestinians, in part because it awarded Israel most of what it had asked for during decades of conflict, including almost all of the occupied land on which it built settlements.
The Biden administration has repeatedly said that further settlement expansion would be counterproductive to lasting peace, but Friday was the first time a U.S. official said they were incompatible with international law.
The move comes a day after far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other ministers had agreed to convene a planning council to approve the construction of around 3,300 homes in the settlements, following a deadly Palestinian gun attack in the West Bank. on Thursday.
Most of the units under discussion are located in West Bank areas east of Jerusalem, with others south of the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, Smotrich said Thursday.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned the Israeli settlement announcement, saying on social media that it undermined the chances of a two-state solution.
Most countries view the settlements, which in many areas separate Palestinian communities from each other, as a violation of international law. Israel claims a biblical birthright to the land.
In a briefing with reporters, White House national security spokesman John Kirby (NYSE:) said the Biden administration is “simply restating the basic conclusion” on the matter.
“This is a position that has been consistent across a series of Republican and Democratic administrations. If there is one administration that has been inconsistent, it was the previous one,” Kirby said.
The Palestinians and the international community consider the transfer of civilians of any country to the occupied territories to be illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and United Nations Security Council resolutions. Many countries condemned the announcement.
Little progress has been made towards achieving Palestinian statehood since the signing of the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s. Among the obstacles preventing this is the expansion of Israeli settlements into territories conquered by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
(This story has been refiled to correct ‘expansion…is’ in paragraph 1)