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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that he doesn’t think Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pre-election vow to annex the West Bank would hurt peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Pompeo’s answer to Jake Tapper’s question in the CNN interview can be heard between 7 minutes 30 seconds until the end of the video.
“I don’t, I think that the vision we’ll lay out is going to represent a significant change from the model that’s been used”, Pompeo said. He also said that the Trump administration had some new and fresh ideas to resolve the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel, but it would ultimately come down to them.
He said that whether it is the two-state solution or something else, there could be potential for peace. But the actions undertaken over the past 40 years by several administrations both in the US and Israel have proven to be ineffective.
On the same day, four Jewish Democrats in the US Congress warned Israel not to annex West Bank territory.
The statement by Reps. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., Ted Deutch, D-Fla. and Brad Schneider, D-Ill., did not name the Israeli prime minister, but alluded to his pledge on the eve of elections that he would extend Israeli law to all Jewish settlements in the West Bank, even those in remote areas, that would diminish the prospects of a contiguous Palestinian state.
“As strong, life-long supporters of Israel, a U.S.-Israel relationship rooted in our shared values, and the two-state solution, we are greatly concerned by the possibility of Israel taking unilateral steps to annex the West Bank. Every one of Israel’s frontiers plays an important role in its security, and Israel’s ability to guard itself from threats is non-negotiable. We hope that any security measures are implemented within the context of preserving the eventual possibility of a two-state solution. Two states for two peoples, negotiated directly by the two sides, with mutually agreed upon land swaps, is the best option to achieve a Jewish, democratic, secure Israel living side-by-side with a democratic, de-militarized Palestinian state.
This will not be easy. Palestinian leadership has been unwilling to accept any reasonable peace proposal or even to negotiate seriously toward a solution. To paraphrase Abba Eban, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. And instead of negotiating, they have pursued unilateral statehood through the United Nations.
Our fear is that such unilateral steps—whether from Israelis or Palestinians—would push the parties farther from a final, negotiated settlement.”
On April 10th, US Senator Chris Van Hollen multiple times asked Mike Pompeo whether the Trump administration would oppose Netanyahu’s possible plan of annexation of the West Bank. He received no answer.
After asking multiple times, @SecPompeo refused to tell me if the United States would oppose @Netanyahu’s plan to unilaterally annex all or large parts of the West Bank even though it would clearly sabotage any prospect for a two-state solution. pic.twitter.com/c7ooKFohFf
— Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen) April 9, 2019
“We are now working with many parties to share what our vision (is) as to how to solve this problem,” Pompeo told a U.S. Senate hearing where he was pressed for a response on the issue.
He said the administration “has been working on a set of ideas” for Middle East peace “that we hope to present before too long,” adding that he hoped they would provide a basis for discussions on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Democratic Senator Tim Kaine asked Pompeo if he thought a peace agreement including one state for Israel and one state for the Palestinians was an outdated idea.
“It’s certainly an idea that’s been around a long time, senator,” Pompeo responded. “Ultimately the individuals in the region will sort this out.”
The final results of the April 9th elections also came in: Benny Gantz’ Blue and White alliance won 35 seats in the Israeli Knesset and lost to Netanyahu’s Likud, which received 36.
Netanyahu is the obvious choice as leader of the largest party. If nominated to form a government, he will have up to 42 days to form a government. If he fails, the president asks another politician to try.
The government would possibly be a repeat of the previous one, with the right-wing smaller parties supporting Netanyahu to form it.
Netanyahu strongly expresses Likud’s traditionally hawkish positions on security in matters such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and foreign policy, with Iran currently as the focus.
About 400,000 Jewish settlers live alongside 2.9 million Palestinians in the territory that Israel captured in a 1967 war, and has held under military occupation ever since, but never formally annexed.
The tensions between Arabs and Israel in the region is also present, especially after Trump announced his decision to recognize Syria’s occupied territory of Golan Heights as part of Israel on March 25th.
Prior to that, Trump recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the US embassy there, which led to mass protests by Arabs.
Most recently, the Trump administration designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, presumably at Netanyahu’s suggestion, which promises to also have potentially dangerous and unforeseen repercussions both for the US and Israel.
Whether Israel would really annex the West Bank is still unknown, but with the US’ unwavering support and its actions that appear to be becoming bolder as time goes by, it wouldn’t be surprising.
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of course they will so the quicker someone puts a bounty for 25 million bucks on fatso’s head the better and the quicker the squatters are evicted forcefully from the land they now occupy, the better – that is the one and only occurrence that will cause peace in the middle east – to repeat – no fatso, no netanyahu and the rest of the squatters swimming for dear life towards shores afar and peace will at last be found in middle east.
Of course, don.t hurt…………….will kill any peace!!!!!………..but this is the idea.
One of my hobbies is Astrology, so I did Pompeo’s chart. He has mercury, the planet that rules your thought processes at 29 degrees Sagittarius. I have known a few people with Mercury in this position, and they have all been extremely stupid, with a tendency to deceive.
I doubt he could do even basic math, how do these kind of people rise to the top in America?
stupidity is the common denominator for white house work (examples abound), just look at donny the dunce, stupidity is like the icing on the cake.
Is this guy fucking insane or make himself potentially crazy
no he just know that no serious opposition exist to challenge them, so they do what ever they want. Unless you think there is then tell the rest of us what is their opposition executing their planning.
You can start with losing the Syria war, which is quite far along. And add the Keystone cops gang that couldn’t shoot straight Venezuelan debacle.
and you can start by trying to get some smart pills rather than the ones you use and activate a second cell between your ears.
He’s turning into another Nikki Haley. A complete embarrassment to the American people with his bald face lies.
I know it doesn’t move the conversation forward, but whenever I see a picture of Pompeo I immediately think of Tony Soprano.
Arabs have to wake up, the Zionist regime wont dissappear. If they want Palestine back it has to be taken by force.
don’t be so downright pessimistic – being an anti-zionist is like a badge of honour and do not ever forget that and do not ever forget to work against a regime of squatters that at any given time can be compared with adolf hitler and his gangbangers – like goehring to fatso, himmler to bolton, like goebbels to abrams and lets say heydrich to any scumbag in donny the dunce’s merry gang of murderers.
Whenever Pompous opens his mouth, aside from cringing at the amount of stupidity I’m about to be bombarded with, I’m reminded of just how far downhill the American educational system has plummeted. Surely no one having achieved a higher education could be as ignorant (or stupid) as this man and other members of the Trump administration have shown themselves to be. Mind you, I’m not saying that the Deep Staters are any brighter.
Yes, just like Jacob Wohl’s nose NEVER cause a hurricane cyclone when he blows it
No it won’t hurt, like smoking 60 cigarettes a day (or stuffing your face, that you understand much better) won’t hurt your health.
Maybe they are that stupid to annex the West Bank too. There’s only so much things they can extract out of the world at the expense of US until 2020. There’s no guarantee for the next president to be as obedient as Trump.
If they go this path they won’t annex all of it, they don’t want the Palestinian population. They will choose the best, most fertile, water rich lands and displace the people forcibly to the rest.
There’s another possibility of course. We have a saying in Persian which translates to: “Offer him death, so he’ll accept fever happily”. After stealing Golan, they talk about the annexation of the West Bank too, so when they announce that they’re not going to do it (or do it but not all of it), Satanyahu will be presented as a generous-and-peace-loving-content-with-his-right yahoo.
He is right, the peace process will not be hurt because there is no peace process to begin with.