Pompeo behind the lines of 67: the message of the “sacred” settlement

The visit of the United States Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, to one of the occupied settlements in the West Bank carried more than one message, all related to his desire to seal his personal legacy in his position, which he will deposit in the coming weeks, with a exceptional position that was not preceded by a US secretary of state, and the same applies to his visit to the Golan. The busy Syrian. On the bigger picture, it seems clear that the administration of outgoing US President Donald Trump is eager to complete its political record of supporting West Bank settlements, in the context of exhausting all available resources during the period covered. between the date of next January 20, in order to initiate more political measures that have the interest of supporting Israel. It is also clear that the Trump administration wants, according to Israeli reports, to send specific messages to the Biden administration, which the Israeli leadership realizes may differ from its predecessor in more than one direction of interest to Tel Aviv, even if the two they remain under the roof of security and Israeli support.

This administration does not deviate from the context of a set of political developments in the region, the pace of which is accelerating in the framework of the expected exchange of government in Washington. In this context specifically, the visit of Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdul Latif Al-Zayani to the Hebrew entity, which included the signing of aviation agreements and the opening of an Israeli embassy in the capital, Manama, occurs in a meeting that Al-Zayani met with his Israeli counterpart, Gabi Ashkenazi. In the same context, the title of the Trump administration’s personal and political conclusion is intended to produce further precedent in everything related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. In this context, Pompeo’s visit to an offshore settlement in 1967 came, noting that the US secretary had previously announced that the US does not view Israeli settlements as a violation of international law.

The US secretary announced that his country would consider the “BDS” movement “anti-Semitic.”

In this regard, Israeli conscience prepares a comparison between Pompeo’s move and the legacy of the Barack Obama administration, when the latter allowed the approval of a UN Security Council resolution that establishes that any Israeli presence behind the 67 lines is a violation of international law. Therefore, in Tel Aviv, the meeting between Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was seen as a message of complete coordination between the two parties, not only addressed to Tehran, but also to President-elect Joe Biden, especially in light of the fear that the administration of the latter An extension of the Obama administration’s policy on the two main issues with regard to Israel, namely the Palestinian issue and the confrontation with Iran.
In the same context, the US Secretary of State announced yesterday that his country classifies the products of Israeli settlements in the West Bank as “Israeli”. This came in conjunction with his visit to the factory in the “Psagot” settlement in Ramallah, in the first visit by a US secretary of state to an Israeli settlement. But the US State Department described Pompeo’s visit as private, noting that no Israeli official accompanied him there. It is worth noting here that the wine factory is at the center of Israel’s efforts to promote tourism in the occupied territories and a strong symbol of its fight against boycott campaigns or labeling of products produced within the settlements. Pompeo had announced, in a joint press conference with Netanyahu, that his country would consider the Boycott Movement of Israel (BDS), which he described as “cancer”, “anti-Semitic”, promising to take immediate action against him, so that the reaction of Netanyahu to this announcement to occur. So “amazing”.

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Damascus condemns the Golan visit

Yesterday, the Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned the unprecedented visit by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the occupied Golan Heights, calling it “provocative”. An official Syrian Foreign Ministry source said, as reported by Syrian official media, that his country “condemns in the strongest terms Pompeo’s visit to Israeli settlements in the occupied Syrian Golan.” The source described the visit as “a provocative step before the end of the Trump administration’s term and a flagrant violation of Syria’s sovereignty.” He also called on “the United Nations and the international community to condemn this visit, which violates Security Council Resolution 497 and the international consensus that rejected Israel’s decision to annex the Golan.” Pompeo’s visit came during the Israeli leg of a tour of the region, which may be his last trip to the Middle East in the final months of President Donald Trump’s administration. Yesterday morning, the US secretary was in one of the settlements in the Golan with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said that “Pompeo and Trump are old friends of Israel.” Pompeo’s visit marked a change in previous policy that prevented senior US officials from visiting the settlements. The late US administration recognized Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan last year.

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