U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that Washington’s backing for Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank will advance Israeli-Palestinian peace, angering Palestinian leaders who seek the territory for a state. In a reversal of four decades of U.S. policy, Pompeo in November announced that the United States no longer viewed Israel’s settlements on West Bank land it captured in the 1967 Middle East war as “inconsistent with international law”. Palestinians and the international community view the transfer of any country’s civilians to occupied land as illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and U.N. Security Council resolutions.
