WASHINGTON – Calling their arguments “foolish,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sent a harsh letter on Monday to 106 Democratic members of the House saying that while they are “free to fixate on settlements as a barrier to peace,” they are simply wrong.The secretary of state sent the letter to Michigan Rep. Andy Levin, who was behind the letter sent to Pompeo last month in which 106 representatives denounced the Trump administration for softening its position on the legality of West Bank settlements. In it, he slammed the Obama administration’s position on Israel and the settlements, writing: “The Obama-Kerry departure from America’s historical support of Israel has done nothing to make peace more attainable.”In the November letter, the House Democrats urged Pompeo to “immediately” reverse his decision. The letter was signed by 12 committee chairpersons including veteran members such as Rep. John Lewis and Rep. Maxine Waters, alongside other high-profile representatives, such as Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Pompeo slammed the congressmen in his letter on Monday. He mentioned Levin’s arguments – first, that the announcement contradicts decades of bipartisan US policy, and second, that such an announcement “blatantly disregards Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”“While I appreciate your interest in this important issue, I couldn’t disagree more with those two foolish positions,” Pompeo wrote in his answer to Levin, according to a copy obtained by The Jerusalem Post. “The State Department’s determination did not reverse any policy with regard to Israeli settlements,” he added. “Rather, the State Department reversed a legal determination by secretary Kerry made during the waning days of the Obama administration, that the establishment of settlements was categorically inconsistent with international law.“That determination was made in a failed attempt to justify the Obama administration’s betrayal of Israel in allowing UNSCR 2334 – whose foundation was the purported illegality of the settlements and which referred to them as ‘a flagrant violation of international law’ – to pass the Security Council on December 23, 2016,” Pompeo’s letter stated.