Far from slamming Israel, Trump signaled a return to reality-based Middle East policy.
Advertisement
“And it offers provocation after provocation”.
The State Department said President Donald Trump’s administration “needs to have the chance to fully consult with all parties on the way forward”. He was officially there to demand support for renewed sanctions against Iran, after Tehran’s test firing last week of a ballistic missile.
The UK, Israel’s second-largest export market after the US, sent $3.7 billion in goods to Israel in 2016 and imported approximately that much as well, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics.
She said she believed there was “much more we can do” and that it was important to look at how “we can build that relationship”.
“As the president has expressed many times, he hopes to achieve peace throughout the Middle East region”, Spicer said. “With cybercrime being a growing issue and Israel leading in combating it, the United Kingdom must be able to learn from the experts in its closest ally in the Middle East”.
Under the new law, settlers could remain on the land if they built there without prior knowledge of Palestinian ownership or if homes were constructed at the state’s instruction.
“By giving a green light to settlers to build illegally on private Palestinian land, the legalization law is another step towards annexation and away from a two state solution”.
Worldwide law considers all settlements to be illegal, but Israel distinguishes between those it sanctions and those it does not, dubbed outposts.
“Britain should ban all imports from Israeli settlements and to lobby the European Union to suspend any trade agreement it has with Israel till it complies with global law”.
The law, approved by 60 members of parliament to 52 against, passed its third and final reading on Monday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had updated the United States administration on the issue.
Since Israel conquered the West Bank in 1967, Knesset laws had never been applied to lands in the West Bank outside of Jerusalem – until Monday.
The lengthy Amona saga – including the evictions broadcast live on Israeli television – directly inspired the bill. Not wasting time, Mr. Netanyahu mentioned radical Islam and the Iranian threat in his opening remarks in front of the media.
She said May would voice concern about how the “continued increase of settlements activity undermines trust”.
The White House statement came as Israel has ratcheted up settlement activity. In campaigning, Mr Trump gave few clues as to his intentions, although his anti-Muslim rhetoric and appeasement of powerful lobbyists suggested that his presidency would be pro-Israel.
Government spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said officers are securing Amona to “prevent incidents”. “Givat Hamatos could happen tomorrow if the government wishes that”, said Aviv Tatarsky, researcher at Israeli NGO Ir Amim.
“To our friends in the opposition who are surprised that a nationalist government would pass a bill in favor of the settlements – that’s democracy”, Bayit Yehudi party leader Naftali Bennett said.
Advertisement
The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem condemned the bill’s passage, saying it “proves yet again that Israel has no intention of ending its control over the Palestinians or its theft of their land”.
