Pompeo’s parting gifts for Israel

The Trump administration’s self-described “reality-based foreign policy approach” has overturned long-standing US policy that deemed Israeli colonies in the West Bank inconsistent with international law. And through the publication of its so-called “deal of the century,” the Trump administration also has set the stage for Israel’s additional annexation of large swaths of the West Bank.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered today to Israel two parting gifts of inestimable value on his farewell tour of the Middle East, the importance of which go well beyond his visit to the illegal Israeli colony of Psagot in the Palestinian West Bank.

‘Made in Israel’

The first is the designation of products made in West Bank Israeli colonies as being “Made in Israel”. According to Pompeo, this move is “consistent with our reality-based foreign policy approach.” 

In his announcement, Pompeo directed the State Department to issue new guidelines which would appear to give a US imprimatur to the permanent division of the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C, and the latter’s incorporation into Israel. These ostensibly temporary demarcations were first instituted in the 1995 Oslo II agreement to distinguish between areas under Palestinian autonomy (Area A), joint Israeli-Palestinian security control (Area B), and full Israeli control (Area C).    

Area C is more than 60 percent of the West Bank and encompasses all of Israel’s colonies. Pompeo’s announcement “recognizes that Area C producers operate within the economic and administrative framework of Israel and their goods should be treated accordingly.” This is not just bland commercial language to determine country of origin markings, but a preemptive US acknowledgment of Israel’s sovereign claims should it choose to proceed with the Trump administration’s green light to de jure annex more Palestinian land between now and January 20.

Last week, Pompeo promised a “smooth transition to a second Trump administration,” backing the president’s frightening machinations which may amount to a coup attempt. In directing the State Department to issue these new guidelines, Pompeo is attempting a complementary bureaucratic coup.

The original guidelines mandating that goods from Israeli colonies be marked as West Bank/ Gaza Strip origin were issued by the Clinton administration through the US Customs Service in 1995. These guidelines were issued to encourage the “peace process” by extending the US-Israel Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to the West Bank and Gaza Strip to enable Palestinian products to also enjoy duty-free entry to the United States. 

These guidelines in no way prohibited or even disadvantaged products from Israeli colonies from entering the United States duty-free. They only had to be marked in a geographically accurate way or face a small tax if marked incorrectly. It was simply an apolitical bureaucratic designation to extend the benefits of the FTA to occupied Palestinian territory.

Under the Obama administration, Customs and Border Protection reissued these apolitical guidelines in 2016. By attempting to move these guidelines from the purview of a technocratic agency to the Trump administration’s highly politicized State Department, this is not mere inter-agency bureaucratic wrangling but another prelude to formal recognition of Israeli annexation.

Pompeo’s announcement is also significant because it seeks to solidify Palestinian political and geographic divisions. Again, under the guise of ostensibly bureaucratic country of origin labeling requirements, the Trump administration is attempting to effect major policy changes. 

“Goods in areas of the West Bank where the Palestinian Authority maintains relevant authorities shall be marked as products of  ’West Bank’ and goods produced in Gaza will be marked as products of  ’Gaza,’” Pompeo declared.

“Gaza and the West Bank are politically and administratively separate and should be treated accordingly,” he added. In making this distinction, Pompeo is seeking to undermine the UN’s terminology of Occupied Palestinian Territory, which implies the indivisibility of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Even Israel acknowledged the “West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit” in the Oslo Accords.   

By attempting to delink the West Bank from the Gaza Strip, Pompeo is further preparing the ground for Israel’s annexation of parts of the former while reinforcing Israel’s illegal blockade of the latter. 

Attack on BDS

In a separate statement, Pompeo also termed the Palestinian-led campaign for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) as a “manifestation of anti-Semitism” and directed the Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism “to identify organizations that engage in, or otherwise support, the Global BDS Campaign.” It is unclear if this identification process will include US organizations as well as foreign ones. 

To operationalize this directive, Pompeo also announced that “the State Department will review the use of its funds to confirm that they are not supporting the Global BDS Campaign” and  “ensure that its foreign assistance funding is not provided to foreign organizations engaged in anti-Semitic BDS activities.”

Pompeo’s announcement lays the groundwork for a type of Mexico City policy toward BDS. The Mexico City policy, often referred to as the global gag rule, prohibits US funding to foreign organizations that advocate for women’s reproductive rights. This announcement could result in foreign organizations being forced to denounce BDS in order to be eligible to accept US funding.

This new State Department policy makes good on the Trump campaign’s pledge in 2016 to “view the effort to boycott, divest from, and sanction (BDS) Israel as inherently anti-Semitic and take strong measures, both diplomatic and legislative, to thwart actions that are intended to limit commercial relations with Israel.” 

While most Trump administration policy changes toward Israel and the Palestinian people were staunchly supported by Republicans in Congress and opposed by Democrats, the Democratic Party bears significant responsibility for enabling this State Department policy. In July 2019, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed on a bipartisan basis H.Res.246, sponsored by Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), condemning BDS and insinuating that BDS campaigns are antisemitic.

Even if Trump allows for a peaceful transition of power to the Biden administration, these latest policy moves by Pompeo will be difficult to overturn. President Biden will have a tough political battle ahead of him simply to restore US humanitarian funding to the Palestinian people. These last-minute moves to further legitimatize Israeli annexation and delegitimatize opposition to Israel’s apartheid rule over the Palestinian people will require much greater expenditures of political capital to reverse.