Settlers and people on the Right are obviously pleased, but people on the Left are not
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement on Monday that “the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law” reverses a 1978 State Department legal opinion.
It has garnered much attention in Israel.
It has dissatisfied people on the Left, who believe it will only encourage the Israeli government to build settlements and even annex parts of, or even the entire, West Bank. One of them is Hagit Ofran, an activist with the settlement-monitoring team at the dovish Peace Now organization, who calls the new policy as announced by Pompeo “bad news.”
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Other Israelis, particularly settlers and settlement activists, have been encouraged by the new stance of the Trump Administration. One of them is Yishai Fleisher, international spokesman for the Jewish community in the West Bank city of Hebron, who believes it’s just the beginning.
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