US Secretary of State visits a winery in the village of Psagot
US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo became the first US Secretary of State to visit a Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Thursday, Israeli army radio Galei Tzakhal reported.
According to the radio station, Pompeo visited a winery in the settlement of Psagot. Earlier Thursday, in a joint speech with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, the Secretary of State announced his intention to visit the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on 19 November.
Since 1967, Donald Trump’s predecessors as American President have recognized the West Bank and the Golan as Israeli-occupied areas, and in 1978, the US announced that the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank of Jordan was “contrary to international law”. In November 2019, Pompeo said in Washington that the US no longer considered that “Israeli civilian settlement construction in the West Bank is in violation of international law”.