Joshua Leifer: Trump is systematically ending the viability of a future Palestinian state

By Dilip -
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement on Monday – that the US will no longer consider Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories a violation of international law – is, in many ways, a near-perfect encapsulation of the Trump administration’s approach to Israel-Palestine.

Couched in grotesque doublespeak, it claims to advance “the cause of peace” while signaling US approval of Israel’s brutal, perpetual military rule over the roughly 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank. It is part and parcel of the Trump administration’s ongoing, concerted efforts to undermine international legal frameworks for addressing human rights violations (and not just in Israel-Palestine). And it is yet more proof, not that more was needed, that the Trump administration is actively pursuing a post-two-state-solution agenda.

 Donald Trump has dragged America's global reputation to an all-time low

Indeed, for an administration marked by erratic decision-making and sudden reversals, Trump’s has been thoroughly systematic when it comes to ending the viability of a future Palestinian state. This, of course, is no surprise. In a clear harbinger of what was to come, rightwing pro-Israel operatives close to Donald Trump – among them David Friedman, now US ambassador to Israel, and Jason Greenblatt, former special envoy to the Middle East – successfully removed support for a two-state solution from the 2016 Republican party’s platform.

Since its inauguration, the Trump administration has taken draconian measures against key Palestinian institutions, from shuttering the PLO office in Washington to slashing funding to UNRWA, the UN body that distributes vital aid to over 5 million Palestinian refugees across the Arab world. In 2018, the Trump administration moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. (East Jerusalem, which Israel unilaterally annexed in 1967 and which the international community considers unlawfully occupied, was once intended as the capital of a future Palestinian state.) Last March, President Trump formally recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights – occupied by Israel in 1967 and, in violation of international law, unilaterally annexed in 1981....
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/19/trump-is-systematically-ending-the-viability-of-a-future-palestinian-state

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