WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared Monday that Israeli settlements in the West Bank do not violate international law.

Pompeo said the Trump administration, as it did with recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and Israel’s sovereignty over the disputed Golan Heights, had simply “recognized the reality on the ground.”

In remarks to reporters at the State Department, he said the administration was overturning actions taken late in the Obama administration, which for the first time declined to veto a United Nations resolution calling for the dismantlement of West Bank settlements.

Instead, Pompeo said, the administration said it was returning to policy under the administration of Ronald Reagan, who declined to characterize settlements as illegal but called them “ill-advised” and an obstacle to peace.

Pompeo, however, said the new decision would “increase the likelihood” of a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

A 1978 legal opinion during the Carter administration said that “civilian settlements in those territories is inconsistent with international law.”

In response to a question, Pompeo denied that the announcement was tied to upcoming elections in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting for his political life.

“The timing of this was not tied to anything that had to do with domestic politics anywhere,” he said. “We conducted our review, and this was the appropriate time to bring it forward.”

Netanyahu and former Army Chief Benny Gantz, who are each vying to form a government following deadlocked elections in September, both hailed the shift.

“The fate of the settlements and the residents of Judea and Samaria should be determined by agreements that meet security requirements and that can promote peace,” Gantz said in a statement, using the biblical names for the West Bank that have become the popular parlance among Israelis in recent years.

Netanyahu, who has been a staunch supporter of settlements and proposed annexing a great swath of the Jordan Valley into Israel proper, praised the move as reflecting “a historical truth – that the Jewish people are not foreign colonialists in Judea and Samaria. In fact, we are called Jews because we are the people of Judea.”

But Pompeo’s announcement was met with dismay by Palestinian leaders as well as peace advocates who view the expansion of settlements as lessening the likelihood – and the size – of a possible future Palestinian state.

“Israeli settlements steal Palestinian land, seize and exploit Palestinian natural resources, and divide, displace and restrict the movement of the people of Palestine,” Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the PLO, said in a statement. “Once again, with this announcement, the Trump administration is demonstrating the extent to which it’s threatening the international system with its unceasing attempts to replace international law with the ‘law of the jungle.'”

Ayman Odeh, the leader of a faction of Israeli Arab members of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, tweeted: “No foreign minister will change the fact that the settlements were built on occupied land where an independent Palestinian state should one day stand beside the State of Israel.”

The U.S. shift runs counter to the anti-settlement sentiment evident in most European countries, including a ruling last week by the European Court of Justice that produce from Israeli farms in the West Bank must be labeled as such and not as products of Israel.

Having Washington disagree could begin to change the perception that “most countries view settlements as illegal,” said Eugene Kontorovich, a legal scholar who has argued that settlement activity does not violate international law.

“When you say the majority of the international community minus America, that’s a big exception,” said Kontorovich, who is director of the Kohelet Policy Forum in Jerusalem and a law professor at George Mason University. “Someone has to go first.”

« Previous

U.S. officials grant $29 million for coastal protection

Next »

Werner Doehner, last survivor of the Hindenburg disaster, dies at 90