Democrats plan legislative response to Trump’s new Israeli settlement policy
House Democratic leaders vow to vote on a resolution backing a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after the Donald Trump administration’s new settlement policy.
The Donald Trump administration’s reversal of the decades-old US position that Israeli settlements in the West Bank violate international law has prompted Democratic leaders to coalesce around a resolution reaffirming support for a two-state solution despite their previous attempts to slow-walk the legislation.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told Al-Monitor today that he expects to put the resolution on the floor “before the end of the year.” Hoyer’s announcement comes the day after the State Department scratched a 1978 legal opinion deeming Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law.
The majority leader noted that both Republican and Democratic presidents have previously maintained “that settlements, whatever the legal argument is, are an impediment to a resolution to the differences between the Palestinians and Israelis, and therefore the settlements should not go forward.”
“That is still our policy, should be our policy, and as a strong supporter of Israel, I have urged that the settlement movement stop, and very frankly be reversed,” Hoyer told Al-Monitor.
