IN a surprise move, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has toured a Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The visit is significant because it is the first such visit by a top US official. Pompeo later paid a similar visit to the occupied Golan Heights.
The trip to Psagot came a year after Pompeo said the settlements did not contradict international law, reversing a long-held US position, according to the BBC. Predictably, the declaration had outraged Palestinians.
Pompeo arrived in Israel on Wednesday for what is likely to be his last trip to Israel before leaving office in January. After meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Thursday morning, he announced that the state department would declare as anti-Semitic the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which campaigns for a complete boycott of Israel over its policies towards the Palestinians, the BBC report said.
Israel says that BDS opposes the country’s very existence and is motivated by anti-Semitism. BDS rejects the charge, saying Israel is using it as a cover for its actions.
Pompeo also told reporters that “for a long time the state department took the wrong view of settlements” in the West Bank.
“It took a view that didn’t recognise the history of this special place and instead now today the United States department of state stands strongly to the recognition that settlements can be done in a way that’s lawful and appropriate and proper,” he added.
He then travelled by helicopter to the Psagot winery, in a Jewish settlement close to Ramallah.
Following his visit to Psagot, Pompeo issued a statement saying the US would require goods imported from areas “where Israel exercises the relevant authorities” to be marked as “Israel”, “Made in Israel”, or “Product of Israel”.
The guidelines, he said, applied “most notably” to the 60% of the West Bank, classified as “Area C” under the Oslo Accords, that is under full Israeli military and civilian control and where much of the settler population lives. It includes the Jordan Valley and many Palestinian communities.
Exports from West Bank areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority had to be labelled “West Bank”, and those from Hamas-controlled Gaza marked as “Gaza”, Mr Pompeo added, arguing that the territories were “politically and administratively separate and should be treated accordingly”.
Palestinian leaders called Pompeo’s actions a provocation.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said: “Pompeo’s visit to occupied land is an active participation in the occupation.”
Syria has also appealed to the United Nations to condemn the “provocative” visit, calling it “a flagrant violation” of Syrian sovereignty, a government source told state media.
More than 600,000 Jews live in about 140 settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. Most of the international community considers the settlements illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
