For the first time, the United States has taken a publicly different position on Israel's desire to build settlements in the West Bank. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says this contravenes international law.
“Our government is disappointed in Israel’s plans to build more homes in the West Bank,” Blinken said in a press conference on Friday. “We oppose settlement expansion and believe that this will not make Israel’s security stronger, but weaker.”
For a long time, American policy had the same position on settlement building in the West Bank. At the end of 2019, the United States under the Donald Trump administration distanced itself from that policy dating back to 1978. Mike Pompeo, Blink's predecessor, stated at the time that Jewish settlements in the West Bank did not necessarily conflict with international law. “.
Since Joe Biden became president in the United States, the situation has changed, but Blinken was the first to say that “settlement construction contradicts international law.”
The United States agrees again with what the European Union and Palestine, for example, are thinking. They consider the movement of people from any country to the occupied territories to be illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and subsequent UN Security Council resolutions.
