U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warned on Thursday that if Israel were to apply sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria, that it would undermine U.S. national security and upend bipartisan support for the Jewish state.
During a virtual event with the Jewish Democratic Council of America, Pelosi said that “unilateral annexation puts [the] future at risk and undermines U.S. national security interests ... and decades of bipartisan policy.”
Pelosi cited a U.S. House of Representatives resolution that passed mostly along party lines in December—with most Democrats voting for it, and most Republicans voting against it—reaffirming support for the two-state solution to the seven-decade-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The resolution emphasized the U.S.-Israel relationship on issues from national security to shared values such as “democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”
At the same time, it also stated, “Whereas the United States has long sought a just and stable future for Palestinians, and an end to the occupation, including opposing settlement activity and moves toward unilateral annexation in Palestinian territory.”
Pelosi also accused President Donald Trump of “acquiescence” amid the rise in anti-Semitism in the United States and abroad.
“He has created a climate in which this has become more accept[able],” she said, citing Trump’s responses in the aftermath of the 2017 protests in Charlottesville, Va., where he stated that there were “fine people on both sides,” including the Unite the Right and neo-Nazi participants. Those protests led to the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer after a 20-year-old man from Ohio rammed a crowd of people with his car.
In December, Trump signed an executive order combating anti-Semitism in the United States.
