Ahead of U.S. Poll
Trump Ends U.S. Restriction on Zionist Settlements
WEST BANK (Dispatches) – The Trump administration lifted a decades-old ban on Wednesday that had prohibited U.S. taxpayer funding for scientific research conducted by the Zionists in illegal settlements in occupied territory, drawing Palestinian condemnation.
With Tuesday’s U.S. election approaching, President Donald Trump’s move was praised by Zionist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and could resonate with evangelical Christian voters who support illegal settlement in the West Bank.
The West Bank settlement of Ariel, the site of an Israeli university, was chosen as the venue for a ceremony opening a new avenue of U.S. scientific cooperation with Zionist researchers.
Palestinians, who seek the West Bank for a future state, said the move made Washington complicit in the Zionist regime’s illegal settlement enterprise.
In Ariel, Netanyahu and David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to the occupied territories, revised three agreements reached between 1972 and 1977, enabling researchers in settlements to apply for U.S. government funds. They also signed a new scientific and technology cooperation accord.
Under the now-lifted prohibition, research money for Zionists could not be distributed in areas such as the West Bank that the regime occupied in the 1967 war. Most countries view permanent settlements on such land as a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
"The Trump vision ... opens Judea and Samaria to academic, commercial and scientific engagement with the United States,” Netanyahu said at the ceremony in Ariel, using biblical names for West Bank territory.
Friedman said $1.4 billion had been invested by three U.S.-Zionist research cooperation funds since 1972.
A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said lifting of the funding ban represented "American participation in the occupation of Palestinian lands”.
The Trump administration last year effectively backed the regime’s illegal West Bank settlements by abandoning a long-held U.S. position that they were "inconsistent with international law”.
With Tuesday’s U.S. election approaching, President Donald Trump’s move was praised by Zionist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and could resonate with evangelical Christian voters who support illegal settlement in the West Bank.
The West Bank settlement of Ariel, the site of an Israeli university, was chosen as the venue for a ceremony opening a new avenue of U.S. scientific cooperation with Zionist researchers.
Palestinians, who seek the West Bank for a future state, said the move made Washington complicit in the Zionist regime’s illegal settlement enterprise.
In Ariel, Netanyahu and David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to the occupied territories, revised three agreements reached between 1972 and 1977, enabling researchers in settlements to apply for U.S. government funds. They also signed a new scientific and technology cooperation accord.
Under the now-lifted prohibition, research money for Zionists could not be distributed in areas such as the West Bank that the regime occupied in the 1967 war. Most countries view permanent settlements on such land as a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
"The Trump vision ... opens Judea and Samaria to academic, commercial and scientific engagement with the United States,” Netanyahu said at the ceremony in Ariel, using biblical names for West Bank territory.
Friedman said $1.4 billion had been invested by three U.S.-Zionist research cooperation funds since 1972.
A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said lifting of the funding ban represented "American participation in the occupation of Palestinian lands”.
The Trump administration last year effectively backed the regime’s illegal West Bank settlements by abandoning a long-held U.S. position that they were "inconsistent with international law”.