US lawmakers snub Trump with ‘two-state’ resolution

NEW YORK

U.S. lawmakers passed a resolution affirming support for a two-state solution to the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians on Friday in a move seen as a rebuff to the Trump administration’s pro-Israel policies.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives voted 226 to 188 for the non-binding resolution that refers to decades of U.S. policy against Israeli settlement-building on Palestinian land and its “moves toward unilateral annexation of territory”.

The document has been viewed as a snub to President Donald Trump, a Republican, who has reversed decades of U.S. policy by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017, shifting the U.S. embassy there the next year, and cutting U.S. cashflows to Palestinians.

California Democrat Alan Lowenthal, who introduced the document to the House earlier this year, tweeted that he was “proud” to secure backing from some Republicans to a resolution that affirms “our support for a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians”.

“We took a stand for a just peace which safeguards human rights and security, and stands against unilateral annexation and settlement expansion,” Lowenthal wrote to his 32,000 Twitter followers shortly after H. RES. 326 was passed.

Palestinians have long sought to carve out their own nation in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip — all territory captured by Israel in a 1967 war — as a way to end decades of tensions between the neighboring peoples.

The “two-state solution” has long had broad international support, including from the U.S., until Trump came to power in 2017 and made a series of pro-Israel policy shifts as hawkish Israeli politicians vaunted plans to grab Palestinian land.