Pompeo’s Declaration May Have Launched a New Reality in the Middle East

US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, announced on November 18, that he was reversing a longstanding and offensive State Department legal opinion that Israelis living in Judea & Samaria were there illegally. A brief historical review of US policy on the legality of what are called “settlements” has, according to Pompeo, “been inconsistent over decades.” In 1978, the Carter administration decided that the establishment of Jewish civilian homes was inconsistent with international law but, three years later, President Reagan reversed that stance. Although much of the international diplomatic community, based at the biased United Nations and in the compliant European Union, were advancing the false notion that Jews living in Judea & Samaria were inherently in breach of international law, a close examination of such laws both civil and military make a mockery of this project designed to advance a Palestinian cause and at a cost to Israeli rights and legitimacy.