Posted on 01/21/2021 8:40:15 AM PST by SJackson
Change occurs after Trump ambassador David Friedman relinquishes account, but is swiftly reversed; spokesman says it was not indicative of policy shift
The US Embassy in Israel briefly changed its Twitter account name to include the West Bank and Gaza, sparking an immediate storm on the social media network by many who wondered whether it represented a policy shift on President Joe Biden’s first day in office.
The @USAmbIsrael account’s name changed to “US Ambassador to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza” around noon in DC (7 p.m. in Israel), when Biden was sworn in as president and David Friedman, a political appointee of former president Donald Trump, officially stepped down from the post.
A short time later it reverted to “US Ambassador to Israel” and a spokesman for the embassy told The Times of Israel that the changes “did not reflect a policy change or indication of future policy change.”
But by the time the account was amended, it had already been widely reported and speculated upon in the Israeli press.
During Friedman’s tenure, the American mission was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. On March 2019, the US Consulate in East Jerusalem, which had served those living in the West Bank and Gaza, was shuttered and folded into the embassy in Jerusalem, which was under Friedman’s jurisdiction, effectively making him the ambassador to all three territories.
Friedman, a long time ally of the settlement movement who never had significant relations with the Palestinian Authority, did not refer to himself as “Ambassador to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza,” though his authority did indeed extend to all three areas once the East Jerusalem Consulate was shuttered.
Critics of Biden, such as Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida, quickly accused the new administration of showing “hostility to Israel.”
“There is no country of West Bank or Gaza, only territories that Israel has been willing for decades to negotiate sovereignty over but has been met with only hostility and terrorism,” he tweeted.
Other right-wing and pro-settler commentators asserted that the name change represented a US policy shift.
Trump, with the help of Friedman, took a number of steps to normalize Israel’s presence in the West Bank. The Trump administration ceased criticizing Israeli settlement building, unveiled a peace plan that envisioned Israel annexing all of its settlements, revoked a legal opinion deeming them illegal, launched a policy requiring all US exports from the settlements to be labeled as “Made in Israel” and extended scientific bilateral cooperation to the settlements.
However, it did not go as far as officially recognizing Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank or give its blessing to annexation of the settlements.
The brief name change also angered some Palestinians, who don’t want the West Bank and Gaza to be under the same auspices as Israel.
“Have we been reduced to the West Bank and Gaza? Not even the courtesy of the occupied Palestinian Territories, which is in accordance with int’l law?” tweeted Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy executive director Salem Barahmeh. “Shame on us if we expect any more from this administration. Shame on us for letting our national project get to this point.”
Less than two hours after it was first changed, the embassy account dropped West Bank and Gaza from its name. The account bio still specifies that the Unit for Palestinian affairs is under its purview.
Biden has declared his intention to restart relations with the Palestinian Authority, which Ramallah severed after Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but the Wednesday name change appeared to have been a mistake by an embassy staffer, rather than action representative of a day-one shift in policy.
It’s no surprise. Deepstate supports terrorism against Israel.
So, the Bidenemy was caught with its hand in the Israel cookie jar already, trying to reduce Israel to the status of a territory instead of a sovereign nation. Good for Israel fighting back!
This is gonna get real interesting—think of it as a manic-depressive Middle East policy.
Israel knows how to play hardball—and they better get all the Mossad starting pitchers and bull-pen warmed up and ready to go...
He gift to his Mullah Buddies.
And yes, he does want us depended on Middle Eastern Oil. The Wars in the 2000s was great for his stock portfolio.
Who cares? Netanyahu couldn’t wait to legitimize the steal the next morning.
Peace for a year, rearm, reset, fire away
Trial balloon to see how the mob reacts. Seems it’s still a hot topic, dial it back and go at it again, this time be quiet about the change and if someone asks, deny or attack.
The “manic-depressive” foreign policy will not be limited to the Middle East. Biden will posture but do little as the Chinese continue to project power in the South China Sea with the building of more artificial islands armed with missiles and troops. Nor will he lift a finger when China decides to take back Taiwan, or when the Iranians again begin disrupting the shipping lanes in the Straits of Hormuz, or as they continue to exceed the “limits” of the toothless Obama masterpiece the JCPOA. All in all, Israel and other US allies need to look around the world for other partners.
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