Diane Feinstein Rips Bibi Over Settlements

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By Daniel J. Solomon March 31, 2017

California Senator Dianne Feinstein laced into Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, after she said a decision by the Israeli cabinet to approve the creation of a new West Bank settlement proved the government was not serious about peace.

The announcement, the Jewish Democrat wrote in a statement, “demonstrates once again Netanyahu’s not serious about a two-state solution for peace.”

Ticking off 129 settlements that house 400,000 Israelis already, she said the push makes it “impossible to create a contiguous Palestinian state.”

The Emek Shilo settlement will be the first new Jewish housing bloc in two decades approved for occupied Palestinian land. This comes amid pressure from the Trump White House for Israel to freeze settlement building in outlying areas and focus those activities in area that it’s likely to keep under a peace accord with the Palestinians.

Feinstein has been a fiery voice from a liberal Zionist perspective. She voted against the president’s far-right choice for Israel ambassador, David Friedman, writing in an op-ed that he was a divisive individual incapable of being “a neutral arbiter for peace.”

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.