This is the first visit by a US foreign minister to an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. Mike Pompeo visited the Psagot vineyard on Thursday, November 19, whose offices are located in the industrial area of Shaar Benjamin, which is part of the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, his services confirmed. He must also make an equally unprecedented trip to the annexed Syrian Golan Heights.
Under Donald Trump’s administration, the United States has shown unparalleled support for the Hebrew state with the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the Hebrew state, the approval of Israeli sovereignty over the portion of the Golan Heights taken to Syria in 1967 and support for colonization in the West Bank.
Israeli colonization in the Palestinian Territories has boomed in recent years, under the leadership of Mr. Netanyahu and since the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House. More than 450,000 Israelis live in settlements, deemed illegal by international law, in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967 and home to approximately 2.8 million Palestinians.
In November 2019, almost a year ago to the day, Mr. Pompeo said that these settlements were no longer, according to Washington, contrary to international law. “For a long time the State Department took the wrong approach on the colonies, failing to recognize the history of this [territoire] special. Today, the State Department vigorously defends the recognition that settlements may be legal (…) “, he reiterated Thursday.
“We will take immediate action”
At the Israeli Psagot vineyard, located between Jerusalem and Ramallah, Yaakov Berg had, in 2019, opened good bottles in honor of Mr. Pompeo. A year later, he confided to having prepared a Pompeo cuvée, whose label is enhanced with the hashtag “#Madeinlegality” (legally designed). This winegrower sells most of his production abroad, in the United States and in Europe in particular, but is at the heart of a politico-legal battle over the status of the colonies.
In 2016, a French decision forced it to have differentiated labeling of products from the territories occupied by Israel. These products could not be qualified as originating from Israel but from Israeli settlements. The dispute was brought to the European Court which validated the French decision by maintaining that the products of the colonies had to be labeled as such.
But Mike Pompeo turned the equation upside down, not only by changing US settlement policy but by going there himself, a first for a secretary of state. At the same time, he asserted that the Hebrew state’s Boycott Desinvestment Sanctions (BDS) boycott campaign, which includes the boycott of settlement products, was judged “Anti-Semite” by the United States.
“We will take immediate action to identify organizations involved in the BDS hate campaign and withdraw US support for these groups.”, added Pompeo.
“A simple recognition of reality”
His comments were immediately denounced by human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch. “If international relations are based on bottles of wine, then the death of diplomacy”, denounced Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh earlier this week.
After the visit to the colony, Mike Pompeo is due to go to the Golan Heights, for the first visit of a Secretary of State to this Syrian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. “Today I will have the chance to visit the Golan. The simple recognition of [ce territoire] as part of Israel was a historically significant decision by President Trump along with a simple acknowledgment of reality ”, Pompeo said during a press briefing in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In March 2019, the United States became the first country to recognize Israeli sovereignty over this strategic territory at the crossroads of Lebanon and Syria, a measure denounced by many states.
