JERUSALEM (VINnews) — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been severely criticized following his announcement on Friday that Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria is “inconsistent with international law”, reversing the policy of the Trump administration on the issue.
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Speaking at a news conference during a trip to Buenos Aires, Blinken said that the United States was “disappointed” in Israel’s announcement of plans for building new housing in the occupied West Bank, saying they were counterproductive to reaching an enduring peace.
“They’re also inconsistent with international law. Our administration maintains a firm opposition to settlement expansion, and in our judgment this only weakens, doesn’t strengthen, Israel’s security,” Blinken added.
Blinkens’ statement followed the Israeli declaration in the wake of the terrorist attack near Maale Adumim on Thursday that it will build another 3000 units in the region in response. 2,350 units are planned in Maale Adumim, 300 in Kedar south of Maale Adumim and 694 in Efrat.
Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman wrote on X, “Blinken is 100% wrong. I researched this for over a year with many State Department lawyers. There is nothing illegal about Jews living in their biblical homeland. Indeed, Undersecretary of State Eugene Rostow, also the Dean of the Yale Law School (who negotiated UNSCR 242), stated that Israel has the best legal claim to Judea and Samaria.”
“For Blinken to announce this in the middle of a war and when the Jewish Sabbath already has begun in Israel is unconscionable,” added Friedman.
House Speaker Mike Johnson shared Friedman’s post and wrote, “Ambassador David Friedman is absolutely correct. This is a shameful decision.”
“The Jewish people have a historic and legal right to live in the land of Israel including in Judea and Samaria – the biblical heartland. It is an absolute disgrace the Biden administration would issue this decision, especially as Israel fights terrorists on multiple fronts that seek Israel’s destruction and as more than 130 hostages remain in Gaza,” added Johnson.
“The Biden Administration must stop undermining Israel and facilitating efforts to delegitimize Israel. It is misguided and unconscionable,” he concluded.
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) wrote, “The Pompeo doctrine simply recognized reality: Judea and Samaria are the homeland of the Jewish people.”
“It’s shameful that the Biden Administration reversed this and rewarded terrorists—all to help Biden’s poll numbers in Michigan,” he added.
Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) also shared Ambassador Friedman’s post and wrote, “Ambassador Friedman is correct. The Biden Admin’s disgraceful reversal undermines a close friend while rewarding the genocidal terrorists they are fighting. It is not a legal assessment. It is a political calculation meant to appease the pro-Hamas radical left. Shameful.”
In 2019, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo implemented a new US policy, overturning a 1978 memo by State Department legal adviser Herbert Hansell, which characterized “settlements” as “illegal”. Informally known as the Pompeo Doctrine, the policy stated that Israeli settlements were “not per se inconsistent with international law.”
The Current government of the USA has turned into a government of hate towards the State of Israel. The USA agrees with the terrorists like the Hamas and the so-called Palestinians who have no rights to the land of Israel. It has always been the land of the Jewish people and that will never change because the Creator of the world and mankind has given the Jewish people the land of Israel. Before 1964 there was never a Palestinian people. Only fabricated by Arafat ,PLO, and slowly accepted by Egypt and then other countries . Those who will try to change the will of the God of Israel and the rest of the world shall be doomed and completely destroyed. The Jewish people have been in the land of Israel for more than 3000 years. The division of the Land of Israel by the U.K has caused all these wars and their hatred towards the Jewish people.
An other empty suite, has no scene of his own, does what is being told by Husain (Haman) Obama
What makes this especially egregious is that Tony Blinken is a child of holocaust survivors, shame on him. Somebody remind him that the time will come when he will have to answer for his shameful behavior.
The Biden admin back the pali terror regime while undermining Israel at every turn.
Blinkin the 2 face traitor or capo
jews living in judea is “illegal”, just because they’re jews?! and they accuse israel of being an “apartheid state”?
Blinken has been lying to the Jewish people that he is also a Jew. How can he then say that Yehuda and Shomron does not belong to the Jewish people when Jewish history over the last 2700 years confirms that these parts are an integral part of the land of Israel. We should advise this US government that Blinken is Non Grato in the land of Israel especially when he ignores the fact that there are no So-called Palestinians existing in the world. Only other liars like Arafat (Egyptian) and Egypt itself proclaimed Palestinians to exist in the land of Israel since 1964. Sick!!
The word “Slammed” in this context sounds quite stupid.
The whining here does not change the facts that the settlements are outside the borders of Medinat Yisrael, and the for an occupying country to move its citizens into the occupied area violated the Fourth Geneva Convention. Trump does not have the power to change this.