Palestinians slam ‘false’ comments by US envoy in Tel Aviv

David Friedman, US ambassador in Tel Aviv, has angered Palestinians with a comment downplaying Israel’s 50-year occupation of the West Bank, the second such spat in a month.
In a video interview with Israeli news site Walla, broadcast in full on Friday, Ambassador Friedman said the Jewish state is “only occupying two percent of the West Bank.”
It brought an angry response from Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of Palestine Liberation Organization, after an excerpt from the interview was aired on Thursday evening.
“Israel is internationally recognized as the occupying power over 100 percent of Palestine, including in and around occupied east Jerusalem,” Erekat said.
He said Friedman’s latest comment was “not only false and misleading but contradicts international law, UN resolutions and also the historical US position.”
“It is not the first time that Mr. David Friedman has exploited his position as US ambassador to advocate and validate the Israeli government’s policies of occupation and annexation,” Erekat added.
Early in September, Friedman caused a stir when in an interview with the Jerusalem Post he referred to the “alleged occupation.”
A US official said then that the ambassador’s comment “does not represent a shift in US policy.”
This time too, the State Department appeared to distance itself from its envoy.
“I’m aware of what he said,” spokeswoman Heath Nauert said in Washington. “His comments — and I want to be crystal clear about this — should not be read as a way to prejudge the outcome of any negotiations that the US would have with the Israelis and the Palestinians. It should also not indicate a shift in US policy.”
Israel occupied the West Bank in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed east Jerusalem in a move never recognized by the international community.
More than 600,000 Israelis now live in settlements in the territory which are regarded as illegal by most of the international community.
US President Donald Trump is seeking to restart frozen peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Friedman said the president remained committed to a peace agreement but had not set any formal time frame.
“I would expect (a deal) within months,” he said.
“But we’re not going to limit ourselves to any hard deadline. We’re trying to get it done right, not done fast.”
The Palestinians have grown increasingly concerned by Trump and his team, including Friedman, who have yet to publicly commit to the idea of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, the so-called “two-state solution.”
“I think that phrase has lost its meaning,” Friedman told Walla. “It means different things to different people.”
Asked by the interviewer what the phrase meant to him, Friedman replied, “I’m not sure. I’m not focusing on labels I’m focusing on solutions.”
The Palestinians, along with much of the international community, view Israel’s West Bank settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace.
“Obviously, there is important security considerations to those settlements, there’s important nationalistic, historical and religious significance to those settlements and I think the settlers view themselves as Israelis, and Israel views the settlers as Israelis,” Friedman said.
Nabil Shaath, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, responded in a video clip on Twitter that the US ambassador had displayed “absolute ignorance of facts of law and of the position of the United States.”
Friedman’s remarks are “very bad news for the future of any American attempt to make peace in the Middle East,” Shaath added.
Friedman is a member of President Trump’s team spearheading efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Friedman, Trump’s former bankruptcy attorney, was appointed ambassador earlier this year, a move that was opposed by Democrats and some Jewish groups because of donations to Israeli settlements, opposition to Palestinian statehood and vocal support for hard-line Israeli government positions.
Trump has called an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord “the ultimate deal,” and has sent envoys, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, to meet with the two sides.
But little apparent progress has been made, and the Palestinians have expressed frustration over the efforts.