After US Ambassador David Friedman said Israel has a right to annex parts of the West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it may file a complaint with the International Criminal Court. “What reasoning could justify Friedman’s logic? International law prohibits the annexation of a land by force,” it said.

“The two state solution is dead. Palestinians have to move on and press for equal rights in a unitary state. That will take a generation, if not longer, but I see no alternative.” Ed Abington once negotiated the Oslo accords for the State Department. Now he sees denial of visa to Hanan Ashrawi as landmark event.

The US Government today folded the former US consulate in Jerusalem, which served Palestinians, into the Embassy led by ambassador and settler-advocate David Friedman in what Hanan Ashrawi of the PLO called “an act of political assault on Palestinian rights and identity.”