US President Joe Biden’s administration held off Tuesday on using the term "Occupied Territories" in an annual human rights report, a formulation abandoned by staunchly pro-‘Israeli’ entity predecessor Donald Trump.
Under Trump, the State Department's reports on human rights starting with the edition released in 2018 have listed "‘Israel’, West Bank and Gaza" and not "‘Israel’ and the Occupied Territories."
For the first report under Biden, which covers events in 2020, the US State Department did not revert to earlier language but downplayed the significance.
"This section of the report covers the West Bank, Gaza, and East [al-Quds] territories that ‘Israel’ occupied during the June 1967 war," it said.
"Language in this report is not meant to convey a position on any final status issues to be negotiated between the parties to the conflict, including the specific boundaries of ‘Israeli’ ‘sovereignty’ in [al-Quds], or the borders between ‘Israel’ and any future Palestinian state," the report claimed.
Under Trump, occupied al-Quds was allegedly proclaimed as the Zionist entity’s so-called capital and later backed its annexation of the Golan Heights from Syria.
Trump’ Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also said the United States did not agree that the Zionist settlements in the West Bank are illegal, unlike the view shared by most of the world.
Pompeo's successor under Biden, Antony Blinken, claimed that the United States will keep its embassy in occupied al-Quds but has also called for greater efforts to support the Palestinians, including through humanitarian aid.
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