Pompeo: Israel is not an apartheid state

• Author: TOVAH LAZAROFF
• Published date: 11 October 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

"This is the rightful homeland for the people of Israel here in Judea and Samaria," Pompeo said.

"We recognized that this is not an occupied nation, this is not an apartheid country. It is a democracy where faiths can be practiced from all of the Abrahamic traditions," Pompeo said.

The former top US diplomat stood on the hilltop winery outside of Jerusalem, where, just 11 months earlier, he announced a historic change in US policy that allowed for settler products produced in the West Bank to be labeled "Made in Israel."

He was the first US secretary of state and the most high-level US official to visit an Israeli-held entity in the West Bank, in this case, the Sha'ar Binyamin Industrial Zone.

It followed an announcement Pompeo had already made in Washington. He said that former US president Donald Trump's administration recognized Israel's historic, religious and legal rights to the West Bank and believed that Israeli settlements were not inconsistent with international law.

Pompeo was most associated with those policy changes, which have been loosely referred to as the "Pompeo Doctrine."

Pompeo's visit coincided with that of outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who spoke with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett about her opposition to West Bank settlements. During her two-day trip she has no plans to meet with former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In Psagot, Pompeo recalled for the festive gathering that included Netanyahu and settler leaders, the dramatic policy changes the former Trump administration had with respect to Israelis ties to areas of the country over pre-1967 lines.

It was obvious early on that the Trump administration "was going to break some glass," Pompeo said.

This included recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and the relocation of the embassy there and its recognition of Israeli sovereignty on the Golan Heights.

Pompeo – whose support of Israel is deeply connected to his Christian faith – said he had already studied about Israel's battles for the Golan Heights in 1967 and 1973 when he was a student at the American military academy of West Point.

Before he entered politics and was a businessman in Kansas, he traveled to the Golan Heights with his family so they could stand on those battlegrounds.

But he felt that perhaps the statement that "Israel was not an occupier in Judea and...