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Jerusalem – Shortly after his arrival in Israel on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of using its resources to “sow terror” at a time when its people are suffering from a devastating economic and health crisis. .
Pompeo is on a flash visit, during which he will discuss with Israeli officials his controversial plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank. In conjunction with the visit, the West Bank is witnessing tensions and clashes between Palestinians and the Israeli army, which resulted in the death of a Palestinian boy by Israeli fire during clashes today, the day after an Israeli soldier was killed by stones.
Pompeo’s visit, which is his first in nearly two months, raises Palestinian fears that the goal is to support the Israeli annexation plan for parts of the West Bank.
“The Iranians are using the resources of the Ayatollah regime to create terror around the world, even during this epidemic and at a time when the Iranian people are fighting hard,” said Pompeo, before his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin. Netanyahu in Jerusalem. “This tells us a lot about who is leading this country,” he added.
Israeli and Iranian officials have been exchanging frequent attacks. On May 6, Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett confirmed that his country would continue its operations in Syria until Iran “moves away” from it, after a series of incursions attributed to the Israeli army on Syrian territory and, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, attacked Iranian sites or armed groups loyal to its combat. In addition to the Syrian forces.
While the US administration adopts a hard line from Iran. It withdrew from the agreement that the previous administration signed with the major powers and Iran in the nuclear archive of the Islamic Republic.
“We will talk about seeing peace. We need to move forward in this regard, and I look forward to that,” Pompeo said at a joint press conference with Netanyahu in West Jerusalem, before closed talks began.
Pompeo added: “We will speak openly about Iran as we have always done,” noting that “what we did was successful and we will continue to do so.”
Pompeo landed Wednesday morning at the Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv, on his first trip abroad in nearly two months. The United States Secretary of State will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Minister of Defense in the next Israeli government, Benny Gantz.
In a “precautionary” measure, Pompeo will not meet with US Ambassador David Friedman, who suffers from “respiratory symptoms,” despite tests showing that he is not infected with the emerging coronavirus, a spokesman for the US Embassy said. .
The twenty-four-hour visit by the United States Secretary of State comes one day before the Israeli unity government takes a constitutional oath before the Israeli parliament (Knesset) in Jerusalem.
The Netanyahu-Gantz agreement ended almost a year and a half of political stagnation in Israel, and three inconclusive elections.
The agreement between them provides for a division of power in a government that will continue to function for three years, during which Netanyahu will serve as prime minister for 18 months.
The Prime Minister, who has held the post since 2009 without interruption, must resign the post after this period in favor of his former opponent, Benny Gantz, who will hold the post during the same period.
Gantz had resigned from his position as chairman of the Knesset on Tuesday night, under the agreement, less than two months after his election to the post.
Pompeo will discuss with Israeli officials the United States President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, announced in late January.
The US plan calls for Jerusalem to be the “united and indivisible” capital of the Hebrew state, undermining the hopes of Palestinians who view the eastern part of the city as the capital of their future state.
Trump’s plan, to which the Palestinians announced their complete rejection, supported Israel’s annexation of parts of the West Bank and gave the Palestinians the right to an independent demilitarized state, along with promises of large investments.
Under the Netanyahu-Gantz agreement, the new Israeli government could go ahead with the annexation process starting in July on condition that the United States council indicates that it has no objections.
Palestinians rejected Trump’s plan and cut off their contacts with the Trump administration in 2017.
Prior to Pompeo’s visit, the Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Saeb Erekat, stated that Pompeo’s team had not contacted the Palestinians prior to the visit. He said: “The Trump administration’s cooperation with Israel regarding its annexation plan is an attempt to bury the rights of the Palestinian people and a flagrant attack on a rules-based international system.”
More than 450,000 Israeli settlers live in a hundred settlements built on Palestinian land in the West Bank, which Israel captured in 1967.
The number of settlers in the occupied West Bank has increased by 50 percent during the past decade under Netanyahu.
Pompeo said Tuesday in an interview with the newspaper “Israel Today” that Israel would make a decision “when and how to move forward” in the implementation of this plan. “I want to know how the new government thinks about it.”
Pompeo said he will also discuss Iran’s nuclear ambitions with Israeli officials.
Daniel Shapiro, the former United States ambassador to Israel under Barack Obama, said he believed Pompeo’s comments about leaving decisions to annex Israel were “misleading.”
“The Trump administration really wants to move ahead with annexation,” added the visiting professor at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.
Shapiro said that “the Trump administration is probably not very concerned about precise borders, but is trying to achieve an achievement … that places it before the evangelical base that supports Jewish voters Trump and Yemeni” before the election. Presidential elections in the United States next November.
Shapiro added that Netanyahu had an accelerated move to help his ally Trump win a second presidential term and ensure that the “annexation” plan was implemented before any possible change within the White House.
However, he believed that this would pose great risks at the international level and could cause a deep divide within the Netanyahu coalition.
Netanyahu promised to apply Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley, the strategic region that constitutes thirty percent of the West Bank.
Experts point out that this step could lead Jordan to withdraw from the peace agreement it signed with Israel in 1994 if it annexed the Jordan Valley with which it shares borders.
Shapiro said Israel should think about the regional “diplomatic consequences”, and asked for the view of US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who considers unilateral annexation a “reckless” decision.
