The US has declared that Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land are not necessarily illegal, in a dramatic break with decades of international law, US policy and the established position of most US allies.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the status of the West Bank was for Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate.
Pompeo said the administration of President Donald Trump will no longer abide by a 1978 State Department legal opinion that the settlements were “inconsistent with international law”.
“After carefully studying all sides of the legal debate, this administration agrees… (the) establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law,” Pompeo said.
The move was immediately slammed by Palestinians and rights groups.
A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas said the US move “contradicts totally with international law”.
Washington is “not qualified or authorised to cancel the resolutions of international law, and has no right to grant legality to any Israeli settlement,” Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeinah said in a statement.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat also said the US decision was a risk to “global stability, security, and peace” and said it threatened to replace international law with “the law of the jungle”.
While, Israel welcomed the move – a reversal of the US stance under President Donald Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the policy shift “rights a historical wrong”, and called on other countries to do the same.
The settlements are also considered a major stumbling blocks to an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
More than 600,000 Israelis currently live in settlements in the occupied West Bank, including occupies East Jerusalem. Some three million Palestinians live there.
Monitor groups have said that Israel has conducted a settlement push since Trump took office.
Israel has occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza since the six-day Arab-Israel war in 1967.
