Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez leads the legislative opposition to Israel’s possible annexation of the West Bank areas, saying it could result in the country becoming an “apartheid state.”
The 30-year-old New York Democrat gathered a dozen signatures in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatening to add anti-annexation chains to $ 3.8 billion in annual aid from the United States to the Israeli army.
Annexation “would actively harm prospects for a future in which all Israelis and Palestinians can live with full equality, human rights and dignity, and would lay the foundation for Israel to become an apartheid state, as its predecessor John Kerry warned in 2014, “said AOC. letter says, according to Politico.
Co-signatories to the letter to Pompeo include Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is Jewish, along with three other members of the left “Squad”: Representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts
“Should the Israeli government continue down this path, we will work to ensure non-recognition of the annexed territories, as well as to seek legislation that conditions $ 3.8 billion in US military funds to Israel to ensure that US taxpayers do not support annexation in any way, “the letter says.
“We will include human rights conditions and the retention of funds for the acquisition of Israeli weapons at sea equal to or greater than the amount that the Israeli government spends annually to finance settlements, as well as the policies and practices that sustain and allow them.”
Describing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as similar to apartheid in South Africa is controversial. Israel’s advocates point out that Arabs with Israeli citizenship can vote in the elections, although Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank cannot vote. The South African government granted limited sovereignty to the disjointed and impoverished areas of the black majority.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this year that he is “sure” that the United States will approve his plan to annex parts of the West Bank. The scope of the possible annexation remains unclear, but may include Israeli settlements in the West Bank and a strip of land along the Jordan River.
Israel took the West Bank from Jordan in 1967 and the Palestinians hope that one day it will form the nucleus of their own country. Israel has already annexed occupied East Jerusalem, which was also taken from Jordan, and the Golan Heights, which Israel took from Syria during the same 1967 war.
President Trump has always supported Netanyahu. In 2017, Trump ordered that the U.S. embassy be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In 2019, Trump authorized the U.S. government’s recognition of the annexation of the Golan Heights.
Netanyahu, however, said Tuesday that the timeline could be delayed and said his talks with US officials on the matter would continue “in the coming days.” The prime minister faces requests for delay from center-left members of his ruling coalition. He originally planned to begin the process of annexing the West Bank on July 1.
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