US Condemns Israel Over Reversal on West Bank Settlements Law
Bloomberg
3/21/2023
© Photographer: Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images/Getty Images/LightRocket
General view of the Israeli flag hanging at a new military outpost that has been placed near the town of Hawara, south of Nablus in the West Bank.
(Bloomberg) -- The Biden administration condemned an Israeli parliament vote repealing a 2005 law that barred settlers from parts of the West Bank, calling the move “provocative and counterproductive.”
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The US is “extremely troubled that the Israeli Knesset has passed legislation rescinding parts of the 2005 Disengagement Law,” deputy State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said. “We call on Israel to refrain from allowing settlers to return to the area.”
“Coming at a time of heightened tensions, the legislative changes announced today are provocative and counterproductive to efforts to restore some measures of calm,” Patel said.
The comments were some of the strongest criticism from the US yet toward Israel as tensions rise between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current hard-line government and the Palestinians. The US has also wrestled with how to respond to rising rhetoric from officials, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. He called the vote Tuesday a “historic correction.”
The Disengagement Law resulted in the dismantling of four Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Repealing it further inflamed tensions with the Palestinians and appears to be yet another setback for efforts to achieve a two-state solution.
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