US President Donald Trump (L) and US Vice President Mike Pence return to the Oval Office after a press conference on the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC on April 27, 2020. (AFP photo)
The US Congress and the Trump administration are pandering to special interests and the Israeli lobby by embracing illegal Israeli policies against the Palestinian people, a political commentator and international lawyer has said.
Barry Grossman, who is based on the Indonesian island of Bali, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Saturday while commenting on a statement the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas about the US ambassador to Israel.
Hamas on Friday lambasted recent pro-occupation statements by David Friedman, who reaffirmed Washington's full support for the annexation of the West Bank and said the Tel Aviv regime had a “right” to do so.
Friedman has said that Washington was ready to recognize Israel's so-called "sovereignty" in parts of the occupied West Bank, including the Jordan Valley, as enshrined in the much-condemned US President Donald Trump's proposed scheme for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hamas spokesman Hazen Qasem strongly slammed Freidman's remarks, describing them as a “violation of the Palestinian people’s legitimate rights", stressing that they were in line with the White House's policy of falsifying facts to further serve Tel Aviv’s agenda.
Following is the text of Grossman’s interview with Press TV website:
The position in international law is very clear. The position of the United Nations is very clear. A longstanding US policy was also very clear, and that simply is that this thing we call Israel has no right whatsoever to establish settlements or annex any part of the West Bank.
It's also worth remembering that UN and wider international recognition of Israel in the first place was conditional on Israel agreeing to certain very clear conditions, namely that Israel would abide by the partition plan that was put forward by the UN, but which didn't come to fruition as a result of Israel unilaterally carrying out the knockout when declaring its existence and independence before the partition plan could have any effect.
Another condition, of course, was that Israel recognize ‘the right of return’ and accept that the special status of Jerusalem. All of those conditions have been repeatedly breached by Israel. So that the real sort of preliminary question is, well, what status does Israel have as a nation and international law, a nation state?
But to be clear, Israel has no right whatsoever to be making demands, annexing or asserting control of any part of Palestine, except as perhaps was envisioned by the Oslo Accords, which are, for all practical intents and purposes, finished. So we're stuck in this very horrible position where we see all of this being played out against a backdrop of power politics, that is whatever can be pushed through will be pushed through international law be damned.
And of course, we see in Israel, we see Netanyahu with really no legitimacy, unable to get elected, unable to form a government facing very serious corruption charges and pandering to very extremist electorate, elements of which fully embrace this bizarre notion of a greater Israel, which includes not only all of Palestine, but huge chunks of Iraq, Egypt and other nations as well, including Jordan.
So that's what he's doing, whereas in the United States, we have both Congress and the Trump administration essentially pandering to special interests and AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) by embracing policies which are illegal in international law, but which win them support in terms of prevailing in elections and getting funding to run in elections.
And it's worth adding here that it looks like Joe Biden embraces many of the same policies as Donald Trump. He certainly has made it very clear that he will not be moving the US embassy from Jerusalem should he win the election. So we come back to this horrible position.
And it's not even remotely surprising that Hamas would denounce the assurances given by Friedman to Israel about some bizarre notion of a right to annex parts of the West Bank. It simply is not correct. The United Nations, though it's not good for much of anything else, has certainly made it clear that it doesn't support that position.
And yes, that kind of strong arm tactic risks further inflaming the entire region and conflict, which remember, all permanent members of the United Nations have an obligation, especially Security Council members, but certainly all members of the United Nations have an obligation to try and maintain regional security and embrace the principles that are laid out in the UN charter.
And what we see happening here is the US supported by the UK, very often by France and to a lesser extent with Germany pulling up the rear, doing whatever they choose to do in violation of international law to support this band of nutters who I can only personally see as being squawkers in Palestine as they seek not only to secure their existence, but essentially expand the territory which they've already usurped at the expense of Palestine and Palestinians.
And that's where we're at. I don't see anything good coming of this. I certainly don't see it coming to fruition. So in that sense these moves are only going to fuel further unrest, further insecurity and potentially conflict in the region.
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