After four years of a Trump tenure outrageously favorable to Israeli interests, the farewell tour had to be provocative. And there is no doubt that the image of Mike Pompeo, descending by helicopter in the Israeli settlement of Shaar Binyamin, in the occupied West Bank, will be a landmark. Never had a senior American official of his rank visited one of these colonies, illegal in the eyes of international law and which the rest of the world sees as a major obstacle to peace.
In barely two days there, the US Secretary of State has multiplied the strong images. Tripartite meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Bahraini Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullatif Ben Rachid Al-Zayani, first head of diplomacy of a Gulf country on an official visit to Israel, visit to a colony in the West Bank, then from the annexed Syrian Golan Heights… The idea was to physically inscribe the legacy of the Trump years like so many postcards in the collective imagination.
The most symbolic of them is the visit to Shaar Binyamin. Washington’s umpteenth snag in the peace process, it legitimizes Israeli settlements as no country has ever dared to do. The place chosen by the Americans is incongruous, an industrial zone planted on the edge of a major axis that connects it to Jerusalem. He was chosen because of his host, Yaakov Berg, patron of the Psagot Kosher wines produced in the neighboring colonies. A year ago, this Israeli settler lost his fight before the European Court of Justice, which ratified the obligation to mention the settlements on labels as the provenance of his wines.
A provocation against the Palestinian Authority
A failure that turned into a victory, since, a few days later, in reaction, Washington announced that it no longer considered the establishment of the colonies, “In itself, as contrary to international law”. The winemaker welcomed this decision with a new cuvée, called “Pompeo”. And it is around this red wine that the US Secretary of State cracked a new declaration on Thursday. From now on, products made in Israeli settlements will be stamped “made in Israel” in the United States, without any distinction. Yet another gift for Israel, a snub to Europeans.
Another provocation, too, against the Palestinian Authority. Already on Monday, Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh implored the international community to condemn the visit of Mike Pompeo and“Impose a complete ban on products from Israeli settlements”. The appeal was followed by a long silence: in the face of the Trump administration’s provocations towards the Palestinians, the rest of the world has often remained silent.
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