WASHINGTON — US House lawmakers issued a strong rebuke to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump on Friday, passing a resolution opposing Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank and supporting a two-state solution.
Earlier this week, Netanyahu spoke to Trump about potentially annexing the Jordan Valley. Since March, the prime minister has vowed to annex the West Bank region and has recently intensified those calls as he remains in a fierce battle to maintain his grip on power.
The nonbinding resolution, known as H.Res.326, calls on the Trump administration to “expressly endorse a two-state solution as its objective and discourage steps by either side that would put a peaceful end to the conflict further out of reach, including unilateral annexation of territory or efforts to achieve Palestinian statehood status outside the framework of negotiations with Israel.”
It passed Friday mostly on partisan lines — by a vote of 226-188-2 — with the overwhelming support of House Democrats and some Republicans.
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Rep. Eliot Engel, Democrat-New York. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
Representative Eliot Engel, the Democrat who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, recalled his longtime support of Israel and how he backed Trump’s shift of the US embassy to the holy city of Jerusalem. He also made clear that the resolution did not impose any conditions on the more than $3 billion in US military aid that goes to Israel each year. READ MORE
